


If there was nowhere to land

by songsaboutdrowning



Category: Florabella - Fandom, Florence + the Machine, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, F/F, Florabella, Florence + The Machine - Freeform, Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-13 00:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 50,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songsaboutdrowning/pseuds/songsaboutdrowning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU, set at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Florence Welch and Isabella Summers meet when Florence has just started school and Isabella is about to finish. But they are destined to meet again. </p><p>There is a slight crossover and interaction with characters from the actual HP canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I have been talking about this fic for what seems like weeks and I'm starting to post it when I haven't finished writing it yet. Please feel free to leave any **_questions_** you might have about the Harry Potter world in the comments and I will answer them as best as I can. There are some _footnotes_ in fact, that I have written to explain the basics that I've mentioned in this prologue.
> 
> If you're not a Harry Potter fan but you're still reading this because you care about Florabella, you have all my gratitude.

# September

Another 1st September, another school year at Hogwarts. Her last one. Isabella Summers has reached her seventh year fairly unscathed, despite there being an actual _war_ just the year before. Not that she'd been around for it – she'd been asked to leave the castle with the rest of Slytherin house, even though she didn't have any kind of affiliation with the dark side whatsoever.

This was the last sorting ceremony that she would have to be at, pushed further and further down the Slytherin table every year. Her mates had grown in height but she hadn't, and she had to lean back very uncomfortably to even get a glimpse of what was going on at the front of the Great Hall.

There had been about 30 new students joining their table; Slytherin always had the fewest students, which in Isabella's mind explained why they always worked twice as hard to be the best at everything. Tonight, they hadn't acquired anyone new since the letter M, and she really was getting quite bored.

She pretended to watch, but actually she was looking back on the last 6-and-a-bit years of her life, never quite able to shake off a sense that she didn't _totally_ belong there. She wasn't the brightest student in her house, but she also hadn't gained admittance to Slytherin just due to her bloodline, like some of her more obtuse house-mates; in fact, her father had been a Ravenclaw and her mother had gone to a completely different school.

She wasn't the most competitive - she'd rather be caught dead than be seen on a Quidditch pitch. She didn't even bother going to matches, and spent those times in the library, working on her Arithmancy coursework. It was deliciously quiet then. Even know-it-alls like Hermione Granger, who otherwise _lived_ in the library, would be watching Quidditch.

Despite all this, Isabella wasn't a boffin, and she didn't particularly cherish being alone. She had a couple of good friends and she even had a boyfriend who'd left school the year before (she would see him again for Christmas break) but somehow she still felt she didn't quite fit. In short, she just wanted to get out of there and start her adult life.

The list of first-years getting sorted was about to come to an end. They had finally reached the letter W, and the Slytherin table looked almost dejected that there weren't any new Weasleys to make fun of. In fact, the last Weasley to be sorted had been Ginny, who was in Isabella's year. In a year's time, there would be no Weasleys at all attending Hogwarts. Then again, after the events of last year, it didn't even feel right to make fun of them anymore. They'd suffered a bad loss, and if anyone knew the value of family, it was the Slytherins.

The last kid to get called up to sit in front of the whole room was _Welch, Florence,_ a skinny little thing with her legs covered in cuts and bruises, who managed to trip up the steps – and caught herself just in time. No wonder her legs were in that state. She had matted brown hair and a fringe an inch too long, so when they put the hat on her head it looked like she didn't have eyes at all.

The sorting hat put her in Hufflepuff and that was it. Done. Isabella thanked the gods that the ceremony was finally over and she could have dinner.

=

Two weeks into their first year, students were asked to try and fly on a broom for the first time. The weather was still nice enough that they could be outside, with a bit of a breeze to help them soar, but not so violent to knock them off mid-flight.

Isabella was walking across the field, on her way to the lake, where she sometimes liked to sit in solitary with her secret sketchbook by her side. She watched the small clump of first-years, surveyed by a new teacher she didn't even know, and identified a couple of baby-snakes that she'd come to know in the last few days. The boys were ridiculously snobbish and obnoxious – they probably didn't get the memo that affiliation with the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters was _no longer cool_ ; the girls were much nicer and excitable, and one of them actually managed to levitate the broom on her first go and gracefully, if a little unsteadily, climb on board.

The battered-looking Hufflepuff kid from the sorting ceremony hit herself on the forehead with the broomstick. She was in visible pain, but managed to hold back tears and pretend like nothing happened.

Before she could stop herself, Isabella cackled, but didn't break her stride.

The kid would get used to it. They all did.

# November

The child was just standing there when Isa turned the corner. It actually gave her a fright as she was lost in thought. She kept changing her mind every other day about what subjects she would take for her NEWTs. Unfortunately, the only one she knew for sure she would have liked to take was forbidden to her: you could only take a Potions NEWTs with an OWL grade of Outstanding, and, surprise surprise, Isa had stopped just _under_ that and been given an Exceeds Expectations.

Part of her thought this was just punishment from Professor Snape because she just wasn't Slytherin _enough_. He was dead now, but she still felt no sympathy. He had effectively stunted her career choices. Her future would be different because of him.

The kid's tie knot was starting to come undone and Isabella resisted the urge to fix it - that was perhaps a telltale sign of her house allegiance ( _fuck you, Snape_ ). She wouldn't accept less than perfect looks for anyone, including herself. The scrawny Hufflepuff was looking left and right and clearly couldn't find her bearings, so Isa thought she would offer a hand.

“You lost?” she asked, as she came to a halt in front of her.

“I have Astronomy class,” the kid explained by way of a reply, “but I can't find my way around.”

“Honey, Astronomy class is up on a _tower_. You're currently underground, and the Slytherin dorms are at the end of this corridor. Did you not realise there's no windows here?”

“I've had Astronomy before, you know.” The child frowned, slightly offended. “It's just... the staircase moved while I was on it, and before I knew it it was going down and not up, and, ah, I don't know...” she trailed off.

It was endearing, Isa thought, and also extremely _dangerous_ , for an eleven year old girl from Hufflepuff of all houses, to be standing outside the Slytherin common room, _alone_. Isa's protective instincts kicked in immediately, and she extended her hand and introduced herself hastily.

“I'm Isabella Summers. Nice to meet you. Now follow me and let's get you to class on time.”

“I'm Florence Welch,” said the kid, scuttling after her in a hurry. Two older Slytherins came down the stairs just then, and gave Florence a harsh stare as they passed her.

=

It didn't take Florence very long to catch up to Isa since they were about the same height. She wasn't even watching where she was going, which meant that if she ever got lost again, she still wouldn't have found her way back up.

“My best friend's in Slytherin!” she spoke suddenly, almost with pride. “Sophie Hart-Walsh, do you know her?”

Isa actually did. Sophie came from generations and generations of Slytherins, and with only two months of school under her belt, she was already acting more entitled than Isa had ever had in nearly seven years. She was very skilled with a broom, and had already declared she'd try out for Quidditch next year.

“Yes, yes. I know Sophie.” Isa mumbled, taking a quick turn to the right.

“She wanted me to be in Slytherin as well, but -” Florence's voice took a grave tone then, “I didn't think I could ever make it. My mum's a Muggle, you know.”

Isabella felt she had to explain that, at least to her, that didn't mean much. “It's not like you can only make friends with people from the same house as you, hun. I'm sure you guys can stay friends, _plus_ you'll make some new ones in Hufflepuff.”

Shit, when had she become so... mature?

“We haven't really talked much, though, since the sorting. It's like she's forgotten me.”

Isa stopped in front of the classroom door, and cut the conversation short.

“So, this is your stop, missy. Although, let me just come in and explain to Professor Sinistra why you're late.”

She'd already done her good deed for the day. Listening to an eleven year old ramble about her best-friend-forever was positively _not_ about to be added to the list.

=

News travelled fast, so fast. And Isabella's legs were too short to run away. By the time she got back to her common room, the two fifth-years who had passed her and Florence on the stairs had already managed to turn half of Slytherin house against her.

“Fraternising with a Hufflepuff!? And a _first-year_ at that?”

Isa's close friends were sitting on a sofa in the distance, shaking their heads and silently inviting her to just shrug the teasing off. But to get to them, Isa had to cross a whole sea of people (if the house with the smallest head count in the school could be called a “sea”). Unfortunately, even though their reputation had suffered greatly when more than half of their alumni had turned out to be Death Eaters, some Slytherins still acted like they had a right to be elitist and feel better than everybody else.

Among those students was Sophie Hart-Walsh. When she noticed her laughing with the older students, Isabella's heart broke a little for Florence.

# December

Isa's last Christmas break at Hogwarts was by far the worst. She had chosen to stay in school, because her boyfriend was supposed to come visit, but he decided to go on a trip with his colleagues at the last minute. This adult world that still escaped Isabella had things like work, and _colleagues_ , Muggle-born colleagues whose parents owned boat houses in countries where it was currently summer. And despite being of legal wizarding age, she hadn't been invited to join them.

Her own parents had decided to go away since she wouldn’t be going to see them in Aldeburgh, so her choice was to go home to an empty house or stay in school. Hardly any Slytherins stayed over at Christmas break; they all had huge families that placed a lot of importance on commitment. She was just with some orphaned students whose parents had been Death Eaters. Maybe they weren't all orphans: Isa was pretty sure some of the parents were in jail, but the students were so ashamed to admit it they just acted like they were dead.

There was a big celebration for everyone, before most of the Hogwarts population made their way back to the train station to go home for Christmas. The school choir would sing hymns to start off the evening, then, after a sumptuous dinner, the room would be turned into a dance hall and the curfew be pushed forward by not one, but two hours.

It appeared that Florence Welch had joined the Hogwarts choir; not just that, but she'd been given a solo. That was _unheard of_ for a first-year. And when she opened her mouth, somehow the room went still. Granted, she was only just a child, but unlike most obnoxious choir kids, she wasn't trying to smile and look angelic all throughout the song; on the contrary, she kept her eyes pointed to the heavens and sang from her gut. There were about a thousand people in the Great Hall, and every last one of them was holding their breath. Isabella was slightly surprised, but then again, she thought, everybody had to be good at something.

 

# March

Isa had begun the new year boyfriend-less, and a little surer that she'd made the right choices for her NEWTs: Transfiguration was the obvious choice, as it was her favourite subject, with Potions out of the equation. She would take Charms, as it was strictly connected to Transfiguration anyway, and Arithmancy.

This last one was tricky: there were only 5 students in the whole school who were taking it. They had decided to prep together, as it only made sense to work as a group. The only problem was that they were headed by Hermione Granger. Hermione had skipped school the year before and had come back just to take exams; the fact she was the oldest, coupled with her being a little bit bossy but also very competent, made her the natural choice for leader of their study group.

Isabella would never admit this to her housemates, but she thought Hermione was actually quite nice once you got to know her. Or maybe she was just grateful to her for teaching her the most amazing charm: it made a small container, like a bag, expand on the inside so you could just go on filling it and no one would be able to tell how much stuff was in there.

When she wasn't studying for her NEWTs, Isabella would return to her favourite hobby, and stalk off with her sketchbook to her favourite place by the lake. No one ever seemed to gather around there, unless the weather got _really_ warm, which worked out just fine for Isa. She would hide around the body of a tower, so she was just out of sight of the Slytherin dorms, and she was fairly sure she couldn't be seen from any windows, either.

One day, as she sat on the grass in her usual spot, she looked up and noticed a pair of legs, dangling around the branch of a tree. She shifted her gaze up and saw who the legs belonged to: none other than Florence Welch, who, still in her school uniform minus her robes, had somehow climbed up the mulberry, and was now reading a book in the perfect hiding place.

Impressed and amused, Isabella thought that would be an interesting scene to draw. She flipped to a new page in her sketchbook and started drafting up the outline of the tree and the small, slight body perched up on the branch. Florence had long, wavy hair that grew quite wild, and her expression was completely rapt as she leafed through the pages of her book. Isa found herself wondering how often she climbed up that tree and if she'd been there other times, without Isa ever noticing.

When she was almost done with the finer details such as the exact shape of Florence's eyes and mouth, a girl's voice broke the peaceful silence.

“Florence! Flossy! Where are you?”

Florence's head shot up and in doing so, she met Isabella's eyes staring back at her. She gave her a quick wave and a grin.

“Florence! Hagrid said he'd take us boating on the lake this weekend if we look after his dog this afternoon!”

The voice sounded very excited at the prospect. Isabella could hear steps, someone running. But it sounded like the other girl was quite far away, and Isa was pretty sure she wasn't thinking of looking anywhere other than her own eye level.

“I'M COMING!” Florence shouted back; she shut her book and deftly rolled off the branch, hanging by her hands, then she let herself fall knees-first into the grass. She quickly brushed her legs, and took off running.

Isabella never saw her again that school year. She thought Florence might sing again at the graduation feast, but she didn't even stay for it. With her three NEWTs in hand, Isa headed straight back to London, where she was going to make her own life, at last.


	2. September

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is now six years later and Florence and Isabella meet again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is a very small chapter, but I don’t really want to publish too much, too soon: I will post the October chapter either Tuesday or Wednesday.
> 
> I want to say a huge thank you to the people who have beta read this, on and off Tumblr and have offered their suggestions, in particular deadpeoplefridge and ohhhflorabella.
> 
> Besides this fic, I currently have three oneshots I am working on. One of them might be published soon, if you don’t mind me taking a break from posting this story.
> 
> Enjoy your read… and please send feedback xxx

# 

SIX YEARS LATER

## September

She never thought that she’d be back at Hogwarts, and yet here she was, starting out a new term as a teacher’s assistant. And not just _any_ teacher’s assistant. She was Headmistress McGonagall’s right hand girl, charged with teaching Transfiguration to the first- and second-years, just because the workload was getting too much for the old witch, when she also had to run the entire school as well.

Isabella had been _personally_ asked to take the position by Professor McGonagall via Floo Network, about two months ago. Her reasons included that Isa had been one of her brightest students,  but surely, all _that_ meant was that Hermione Granger was too busy with her Ministry job to consider heading back to her old school, and so were a couple of others, who Isa would have deemed to be cleverer than she’d been. She’d never really wished to teach children, but it was better than being stuck in London in a dead-end bank job.

There were more reasons to McGonagall’s insistence – on one hand, her attempts to always recognise value in houses other than her own, and to promote collaboration between them rather than rivalry. The only field where the headmistress ever allowed, and even encouraged, rivalry was Quidditch. But also, there was the implication that McGonagall knew Isabella hadn’t been able to further her studies in Potions because of her “disappointing” OWL results.

She’d used the phrase, “Hogwarts did you wrong, Miss Summers. Let us put it right, now”, and that was the closest thing to an apology Isa was ever going to get. She was over that now – after all, working in an apothecary and dealing with stupid customers couldn’t be  _that_ much better than working in a bank and dealing with stupid account holders. She hadn’t missed out on much, she told herself. 

This was a change, though. All things considered, the pay was better than at Gringotts, there were less goblins, and she maybe felt a certain longing to get back to the Hogwarts grounds. Funny how 6 years ago, she’d been happy to leave, and thought she would never come back. But the lake had always stayed with her, somehow. Throughout her school years she’d fallen asleep listening to the gentle lapping of the water on the shore; she wanted nothing more than to get herself back in the dungeons, but unfortunately, as a teacher, they’d put her up in a little room in a tower, with two other female teachers upstairs and downstairs from her. She hadn’t learnt who yet.

She was the youngest person at their table – the next youngest was at least ten years older, and she still felt very, _very_ out of place.

After the sorting ceremony, Professor McGonagall delivered a welcome speech, introducing Isabella and two older gentlemen as new additions to the teachers’ body. There was some uninterested applause from students of all ages, until the headmistress announced that the school anthem was about to be performed for the newly sorted. And the person chosen to perform it was Florence Welch of Hufflepuff.

Isabella recognised her immediately, even if she was much taller than the last time she’d seen her, and her hair had been dyed an orangey red. She didn’t have time to wonder if Florence would remember her, because as she was ascending the steps to the pulpit, dressed in her school robes but unable to hide that she was wearing platform stilettos underneath (just a cheeky gesture before she was forced to wear sensible shoes for a whole term, she figured) she directed a beaming smile at Isabella. And she looked her straight in the eye.

The shy child that Isa remembered was nowhere to be found. Florence looked perfectly at ease in her own skin, not unlike Isabella herself had been, in her last year of school – or at least she liked to think she’d been.

The school song had been changed the year after the war – in fact, it had been performed for the first time on the first day of Isabella’s seventh year. It went from being a nonsensical nursery rhyme to a rousing anthem that commemorated Dumbledore’s death and all those who had fought in the final battle against Voldemort. The cheer started halfway through the last line of the song, and surprisingly, the loudest whooping came from some girl sat bang in the middle of the Gryffindor table, rather than Florence’s own. By the end, however, all houses were on their feet, and Isa let herself hope that maybe the rivalry had finally toned down in the years that she’d been absent.

Remembering an old conversation with a much younger Florence, Isabella looked down the far end of the Slytherin table at Sophie Hart-Walsh. She still looked every bit the poster child for Slytherin haughtiness, but at least she was clapping.


	3. October

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabella is given yet another project to look after at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The names of all the secondary characters in this chapter are dedications to the people who have been reading my fic and been extremely supportive throughout the months. x

# October

One month into her teaching position, Isabella had settled in, kind of. McGonagall had helped her draft up lesson plans, especially for the second-years who wouldn’t have had her as a teacher the year before. She taught each class twice a week, adding up to a total of 24 hours teaching time. Her schedule even left her one weekday morning and one afternoon free, and she used that time to paint either in her little tower room, or down by the lake. At times, it felt like she’d never left.

Trust McGonagall to throw her a curveball and suggest yet another project.

Hogwarts had a long standing tradition of after-school clubs, some of which were student-run while others were supervised by professors. Isabella had been part of the Potions club, herself, before being unceremoniously dropped from the course; however, she’d always refused to join the Art club because she had no intention of sharing her artwork with others. There were also a Chess club, a Charms club and, obviously, the four Quidditch house teams.

When McGonagall had decided to approach Isa to supervise the Art club, she had harped on about how admirable it was that students still found the time to unwind and dedicate themselves to extra-curricular pursuits – even in 5th and 7th year, when they had exams. To seal the deal, the headmistress had made a selling point that couldn’t be refused.

“It would be useful for you to try relating yourself to different age groups, Miss Summers. It might prepare you for a more challenging teaching position in the future.”

Isabella was still at a stage where she wouldn’t refuse anything her boss asked of her. She needed to keep this job, for as long as it lasted. Supervising a bunch of students while they painted, and coming up with themes that would stimulate them didn’t seem like so much of a chore once a week, so she accepted without any resistance.

The second week of October, she sat at the head of the Charms classroom (it had the best natural light), and watched nervously as a small group of students walked in at 3PM on the dot. She recognised a few faces – four students from Slytherin, including Sophie Hart-Walsh, plus Florence Welch with a Hufflepuff friend, one lonely Gryffindor boy, and three Ravenclaws, all girls, bringing the group to an even ten.

She took a deep breath.

“Hi, I’m Isabella Summers, and I teach -” god, that still sounded so weird, “first and second year Transfiguration. So, to start with, I thought we might go round the circle, and introduce ourselves, maybe talk about our favourite mediums and subjects to paint?”

“I’m Oline Quistgaard,” the Hufflepuff immediately to Isa’s right said. “I’m in sixth year, and I like black and white portraits. Black ink, white paper, simple as that.”

Isabella smiled encouragingly.

“Florence Welch,” Florence said, looking rather bored and bobbing her head along like she was listening to music. “Seventh year. I do all sorts of stuff, really. Installations, big and small. And pencil drawings. Mostly.”

The Ravenclaws introduced themselves as Cori, Jessica and Aliya. Isa already knew all the Slytherins, but let them introduce themselves anyway. Most notably, a fourth-year called Ella claimed that she liked to paint underwater scenes using the Slytherin house colours exclusively. Isa made a mental note that she might possibly turn out to be a challenge.

The Gryffindor boy, called Callum Martin-Moore, was the last one to speak. He said he liked watercolours, and preferred painting realistic objects. And now Isa had to find a way to _engage_ all these kids and bring them together.

“So, uhm… the purpose of this club is to challenge you guys. I might suggest a topic and give you some time to work on it, and I will try to push you out of your comfort zone by maybe trying a different technique than usual. For now though, I thought we could start with something simple.” There was a small plinth next to her, covered with a cloth. She lifted it with a flick of her wand, revealing a small sculpture of a dragon. “I want you guys to produce your own interpretation of this dragon. Realistic or abstract, you decide. We can start it today, and finish it next time. I’m open to suggestions for topics, by the way.”

The students got their supplies out, and got to work. The atmosphere was relaxed, though, and they were having whispered conversations, generally keeping to their own houses. Callum didn’t have any housemates there, but the Ravenclaw girls welcomed him into their little group.

 _See, Isa,_ she thought to herself _, you can do this._ She took her own sketchpad out, and unbeknownst to all, began drawing caricatures of every single student in the room.

=

Two weeks later, Art Club fell on the day of the Halloween feast and Isabella didn’t think the students would be willing to sit in a classroom when they had to get ready for a party, but she was surprised to see she had full attendance.

Their “homework”, if you could call it that (these were not lessons and she didn’t have lesson plans; the students could have just as easily refused to do what she asked, but thankfully, they all seemed quite good natured) had been related to the topic of “family”, which Isa had set last week.

There had been some interesting responses. Jessica Webster, who was in fifth year and mostly drew comics, had brought in a lino-print of what Isabella assumed to be her family house, set against a background of sheet music. It was beautiful, and she got a round of applause for it.

Sophie Hart-Walsh had painted a somber-looking family portrait, and she had enchanted it. The candles in what was probably their drawing room were flickering, and they created shadows and blew a light breeze on Sophie and her parents’ clothes. The quality of the work was outstanding, and Isa could see why Sophie was still pursuing art even though her future career had been pre-determined by the family she’d been born in. She would be an academic all her life, for sure, like Mr Hart-Walsh.

Florence Welch went last; she brought in a bonsai. An actual miniature tree, which she’d borrowed from the greenhouse, she said. She’d cast a charm with her wand, and two little lights, like fireflies, had started to dance around the branches, like they were playing hide and seek.

“The yellow one’s me,” she explained, “and the red one’s my sister, Grace, who’s in Gryffindor.”

And just like that, the girl who had shouted the loudest for Florence’s singing during the start-of-term feast suddenly had a name in Isabella’s mind.

Keeping her eyes trained on the bonsai tree, Florence tilted her wand slightly upwards, and the whole room heard giggles, like children’s laughter.

Everybody looked mightily impressed. Isabella thought that it was a good note to end on. She dismissed the group and wished them a happy Halloween once again.

“Are you coming to the ball tonight, Miss?” said the cheekiest of the Slytherin boys.

Isabella had other plans, but she thought it better to remain vague.

“Maybe,” she responded.

Not a single person in the room knew it was her birthday.

=

After dinner, when the Great Hall turned into a dance floor (it was a Friday on top of everything else, so curfew had been lifted for the occasion), Isabella slipped out, and made her way to the Owlery, all by herself. Even up on a tower, she could hear the reverb of the music being played at the party, and it resonated in her chest, punctuating her loneliness.

The Owlery was a bit of an undesirable place to be in. It was cold, because the windows had no panes, and it smelled, but Isa knew that her owl, Bailey, would have flown out to collect any birthday cards her family and friends might have sent her today. True to form, there was a small bundle of envelopes right underneath his perch, and Isabella rewarded him with two mice that she’d found and Stunned in a corridor.

She started looking through the envelopes as she was coming down the stairs, even though she should have paid more attention, as the steps to the Owlery were dangerous, crooked and slippery. She made it to the bottom in one piece, however, and by that time, it was clear there was no post from the one person she wanted it from.

There were cards from her parents, her brother, her uncle and her three closest friends – two of whom she’d been at Hogwarts with – but there was nothing from Amy.


	4. November

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabella finds two special things: first a secret room, then a secret journal.

# November

Isabella was sure this room wasn't there in her student days. She'd stumbled upon it by absolute chance on her way back to the teachers' common room (yes, there was such a thing. People in their 40s and 50s probably liked to socialise with each other, but Isa felt like such an intruder that she only went into the room when absolutely necessary). She'd noticed a door to her right, and something had come over her, telling her she _had_ to go inside.

She'd slipped in quietly and closed the door with as little noise as possible, and found herself in quite a large room, with tall windows and dark stone walls. There were the most random of objects stacked in every corner imaginable, from cupboards to birdcages, even to marble statues. In the middle of the room sat a black baby grand, like it had been placed there especially for her.

Isabella had played the piano as a child, and every time she went back to visit her family, she had dabbled on the cheap vertical one they had in their living room. She liked to compose her own music, but couldn't _write_ it, so she just went by ear and hoped she'd remember the next time she stumbled upon an instrument.

Before she got any closer, she thought it'd be wise to shout out a “Hello?” into the room, just to make sure no one was there. Her voice bounced off the walls and back at her, and she added 'amazing acoustics' to the reasons why she was liking this part of the castle more and more with each passing second.

She went to sit down at the piano and put her fingers on the keys, tentatively playing some bass notes to make sure everything was tuned. Her chest filled with joy at the familiar sound and she found herself smiling in the early afternoon light. She was going to be coming here quite often. Quite often indeed.

She didn't know how long she'd been playing, but the sun was still quite high outside, when she looked up and out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of golden yellow to her left. It was Florence's tie, and the lining of her school robes. Isa's hands froze in place and she interrupted herself mid-song, feeling awkward.

Florence was just as embarrassed to have been caught staring. “I'm so sorry,” she apologised, “you should continue. That sounded really good.”

“How did you get in here?” Isabella replied in a slightly accusatory tone.

“I don't know, actually. I was just walking past and this _door_ appeared, out of nowhere it seemed. It couldn't possibly be a coincidence, so I thought I'd have a look.”

Things suddenly clicked for Isa then. This was the Room of Requirement. She'd heard about it. The Room manifested itself to people who were in need of something specific and were thinking about it intensely. She couldn't remember thinking about wanting a piano when she had walked past, but she was indeed wishing that she didn't have to go to the teachers' room and she could just be somewhere she could be _herself_. The wish had manifested itself in the form of musical expression. It made sense. But as far as she knew, the room could not be occupied by two people at the same time, unless they needed it for the same purpose. Did that mean that Florence had been wishing for musical expression, too?

Isabella pushed back her stool, but didn't stand. She felt silly asking this, but she had to. “Were you thinking of anything... specific, when you saw the door? Wishing for something, perhaps? This place appears only when someone is in need of something.”

Florence looked really uneasy, like she wanted to step away and bolt from the room. She brought a hand to her chest and started fiddling with the buttons on her school shirt to keep herself occupied.

“I was thinking, uhm, about... stuff, yeah. Wishing for clarity, I guess, in my life.”

She couldn't have been more unclear if she'd tried to.

“I was wishing I could have someone I could talk to about certain... things. Who would understand. I really struggle to let out how I feel most of the time.”

Considering what Isabella had just explained to her, Florence also struggled to comprehend why her wish had manifested itself in the form of the most improbable of teachers, playing the piano in an empty room.

She must have looked quite dejected, though, because Isa's reply was an invitation.

“You can talk to me anytime.”

Florence couldn't know that Isabella regretted the words the minute they left her mouth. She really had no desire to form attachments to anyone.

“You know, maybe I had it wrong. Maybe it's just that I sing, so I wanted somewhere to make music?”

“You sing? Really? You don't say!” Isa commented, amused.

Florence relaxed a little.

“Maybe I should sing while _you_ play and that's the whole point of this room.” Her confidence was coming back, like any time music was involved. Those were the only times when she felt she was really herself, and she could accomplish anything.

“You truly have a lot of interests, Florence, don't you?” Isabella asked, and unconsciously started repositioning her stool to start playing again.

Florence smiled in response, and it was a bright, defenceless smile, like a child's. Isa thought it was heart-warming, and found herself smiling back.

“So, what would you like to sing for me, Welch?” she asked cheekily.

Florence took a few steps forward and came to stand by the piano.

=

She had been shaking at first, but Isabella thought there was no reason for Florence to be afraid. She had a magnificent voice and Isa had found herself mesmerised at how lost Florence got in the music. She hadn't looked at Isa once. It was like she'd become a different person for a few minutes. As soon as she had finished the song, though, she had reverted back to being an awkward, self-conscious teenager, and had excused herself from the room, leaving Isa with her secret baby grand.

A few days later, after the usual Art Club meeting on Friday afternoon, Isabella had just dismissed the group and was collecting her own sketchbook and notes, when a glimmer had caught her eye from the right hand side of the classroom. Someone had left a journal on one of the chairs – it was a metallic gold colour, and emblazoned with the Hufflepuff house crest. That narrowed the owner down to two possible people, and then to one when Isabella noticed the initials FW etched in the upper-right corner of the cover.

Setting her belongings down, she sat on the nearest chair, and began flipping through the pages. It was clearly being used as a sketchbook, and within the first few seconds, Isabella recognised a portrait of Grace Welch, Florence's little sister, in her Gryffindor uniform. It didn't look finished, like Florence had got bored halfway through, but she'd done a good job of capturing Grace's smile. At the top of the page, block capitals titled the drawing “Trust”. Isabella smiled. She wondered what it was like to have a sister.

Moving on, she found studies of mermaids, repeated around the page in several poses and with different faces. Florence only seemed to use the right side of the book for drawing. The chosen subjects showed a fascination for seascapes, ships in storms, and lighthouses but also some creepier imagery – there were trees in the night which looked menacing, and defenceless, gothic little girls in nightgowns. Isabella thought for a minute one of them looked like her because of the thick black lines around her cartoonish eyes, but nothing could prepare her for what came next.

The following page had a study of _her:_ Isabella, sketched with different expressions, all from exactly the same angle. Florence must have done these during Art Club when she wasn't looking. They hadn't all been drawn the same day, as sometimes Florence had also sketched her bust, clad in different types of conservative-looking teachers' outfits. She thumbed to the next page to find a full-size drawing of her, at her piano. It was pretty darn good considering it must have been done from memory.

Once again, this was from Florence's point of view, so it showed Isa's left profile, her hair pulled in a side ponytail, blonde ringlets covering part of her face. Isabella was pretty sure Florence had drawn her much more attractive than she actually was. At the top of the page, she had titled this “Faith”.

Isabella shut the book in shock, her mind boggling to figure out what the association meant. What _any_ of it meant, really, as it seemed like Florence could have a bit of an overactive, dramatic imagination. To be associated with faith was flattering, but scary – Isa wasn't used to people depending on her, and for what?

She thought back to Florence's comment about needing someone to talk to, and how Isa had never really found out what about. Part of her was naturally intrigued, but the rest of her was sounding alarm bells that said, _no attachments, Isabella. Don't do it._

She still had to return the journal, however, that was for certain.

_=_

The entrance to the Hufflepuff common room was behind a stack of barrels by the kitchens. There was a code word, or rather, a code rhythm that she had to tap for the barrels to move out of the way, and she obviously didn't know it. She thought maybe, if she stood outside long enough, someone would have come in or out and let her pass. But between it being time for Quidditch practice and the weekend having officially begun, there wasn't a lot of movement. Whoever was out, stayed out, and whoever was in, stayed in.

Suddenly, a ghost came through the wall with a swoosh, blowing Isabella's hair out of her face, and her cloak, a little. It was the Fat Friar, the Hufflepuff house ghost. Before he had a chance to say anything, Isabella asked calmly, “Hello, can you tell me if Florence Welch is in, please?”

The Fat Friar, who usually had quite a placid disposition, squinted at her and bellowed, “And what business does a Slytherin have trying to get into the badgers' common room, huh?”

“I know I'm little and I look young, but I'm a teacher!”, _dammit_ , Isabella mentally added. She pointed to the crest sewn onto her robes, which was a Hogwarts one rather than a specific house.

“I remember you, Summers. You were always stalking off to paint on your own. And you didn't like Quidditch. _Who_ doesn't like Quidditch?” He scolded her.

“Please _, sir,”_ Isa found herself saying through gritted teeth. “I have something that belongs to Florence Welch, and I need to return it.”

“Alright, alright,” the ghost conceded. “I'll go see if she's in the dormitories.”

He disappeared backwards through the same wall he'd come from.


	5. December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It seems that Isabella is destined to keep meeting Florence. Even outside of school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, due to the recent twitter/tumblr commotion, for the foreseeable future I am only going to post my stories on this website. I would recommend that you bookmark it. Thank you and sorry if this makes your life difficult but I really don't want the people involved (and Jeremy) to read this. 
> 
> I am not totally happy with this chapter, in fact I was still making changes to it until seconds before I posted it, but I'm going back to work tomorrow so I wanted to get a new part published before I go back to my shitty day-to-day life xx

# December

Florence hadn't been in the common room that afternoon, and Isabella had found herself stuck with her journal until the next Art club meeting. She'd tried to seek Florence out in the week she'd had it, to see if it would ever be safe to approach her in a corridor or after lunch, but her student had always been with other people, laughing and joking and just generally being a teenager.

Isabella knew, by this point, that Florence felt lonely, but she couldn't figure out why. She seemed to be happy around others, and while not popular, she was certainly _renowned_ : she'd seen her get told off for singing out loud while moving from one classroom to another at least four times in seven days, and one time she'd seen her almost break a leg running down the stairs towards her sister, after spotting her from the floor above and shouting “GRACE!! Grace, Grace, Gracie, wait for me, I'm coming down NOW!!”

The only reason she _hadn't_ broken her leg was that Isabella had cast a silent enchantment from under her cloak to slow Florence down just enough that she'd found her footing again. It was a tame spell; Florence would never be able to tell there had even been an outside intervention, but it had left Isa wondering why she'd felt the need to do that.

She'd been very aware of Florence's presence that whole week, she realised reluctantly. When she couldn't delay giving back the sketchbook anymore, Isa had spent the entire Art Club session considering ways that she could speak to Florence, both about having kept it that long, and about the things she'd found in that journal regarding herself.

Not wanting to draw attention to herself, she just exited the class together with her students, and singled out Florence, who was walking back downstairs – at least she was alone, as Oline had been absent that day. Isa caught up as quickly as she could and accosted Florence, quietly saying “I have something of yours.”

Florence knew what she was on about. She'd left her sketchbook in class on purpose so Isabella could find it. When she'd needed someone who would understand her, the Room of Requirement had led her to Isabella and she didn't feel quite confident enough to befriend her, so she thought she'd let her art speak for her, at first.

“Oh, thank you! I'd lost all hope to try and locate this with spells!” She couldn't help letting out a small, nervous laugh. “Did you have a look inside?”

“No,” Isa lied, chickening out at the very last minute.

Florence's stomach sank. She'd hoped that Isabella would ask her questions about what she'd seen, about why she had been the subject of her drawings. She'd convinced herself that their meeting had been destiny, that the room had led her to the person who was supposed to understand her better than any other.

“Oh. Thank you. That's very... respectful.”

Isa noticed how soft-spoken Florence was when she was caught off-guard, and even though she regretted her lie a little, her heart warmed up to Florence's shyness.

“I don't show my artwork to _anyone_ , Miss Welch. I assume the same for every other artist I meet, until they tell me otherwise.”

She felt a little guilty, not just because she had in fact seen Florence's sketches, but also because Florence had bared her soul to her enough that afternoon in the Room of Requirement through her singing, and she hadn't returned the favour in any way. _No attachments, Isabella._

“Well, thanks for this. And thank you for playing for me, the other day.”

A sadness had descended over Florence's striking green eyes that led Isa to saying something very careless.

“I can tell you have a deep love of music, Florence. You should cultivate it.”

She turned on her heels, cursing herself for using Florence's first name, not even waiting for her young student to respond. Isabella remembered the word she'd been associated with - _faith_. Faith in what? She had nothing to offer this girl. Nothing; no attachments. She wasn't going to be fooled again.

=

It had been a white Christmas. Isabella had been allowed to leave the castle during the holidays, as there were more than enough teachers left to look after the few students who wouldn't be returning home. She was in Aldeburgh visiting her parents, who had obviously wanted to hear all about her new job, and were pleased to see that Isa seemed much happier than when she'd been working in London. At least she was among equals, and not being bullied by goblins.

On the morning of the 27th December, she decided to go for a walk with her sketchbook. It was insane to think of creating any sort of art in those temperatures, but she was wearing two pairs of fingerless gloves, and nothing could stop her, even though her fingertips were looking an attractive shade of crimson.

She was the only crazy person who was actually sitting on a bench in the park. Everything was covered in two inches of snow, but she was wearing a waterproof coat - magic may just have a _little_ something to do with why she wasn't literally freezing her arse off - and she just didn't care. Wherever she looked, there was stillness, and quiet, and she felt deeply at peace with the world. She almost wished that she'd never have to speak to another human being again.

When she finally admitted to herself that she was _too_ frozen to go on, she started making her way to the pub, where she was hoping to buy herself a cinnamon hot chocolate that would warm up her soul as well as her hands. Even if it meant going from the most complete silence into a crowded room filled with old people who thought it was appropriate to be drunk at midday.

As she turned onto the main street, she saw a familiar figure headed her way. _No, it can't be. What are the odds?_ She was tall and graceful, and wore a thick woollen coat that brushed the ground. The hems were covered in snowflakes, and a bright red fringe was peeking out of a fur-lined hood. _Florence_.

There were wires coming out from under her hood, and Isa realised Florence was wearing a Muggle device to listen to music. If she could pick one Muggle object to own, that would be it. Not that electronic devices worked at Hogwarts, but she envied the half-bloods and Muggle-borns who had grown up with them.

Lost in her own world, it wasn't until she noticed something blocking her way that Florence looked up to see what was in front of her.

“What are _you_ doing here?” they asked each other at the same time.

“I live here!” Isa exclaimed. “Or rather, I'm _from_ here. I grew up here. You?”

“My uncle lives here. My mum's brother... it's his 50th birthday, we came down for the day. It's the Muggle side of the family, and they were driving me a little crazy, so I said I'd be going for a walk.”

Isa didn't have a Muggle side of the family, but she could guess things must have been quite awkward. She imagined the Muggles would ask for constant demonstrations of magic from Florence, her dad and her sister, and then not understand when told that Grace was _too young_ to perform any spells outside of school.

Something possessed her to say, “Well, I was just going to the pub to get myself a hot drink. Do you want to come along?”

=

They found a table by the window; there was still a little pool of snow gathered on the outside of the glass. Florence absent-mindedly traced the shape of it with her finger, she wasn't sure why. Isabella was just at the counter, ordering them two hot chocolates, and Florence felt quite nervous at being alone with her outside of the school grounds.

She shouldn't have accepted her offer, but she _wanted_ to, so badly. She thought Isabella was the type of person who was unaware of how fascinating she was; it wasn't just her gothic look, her platinum blonde hair, pale lips and the stark contrast with the black around her eyes. And it wasn't just her well-kept-secret talent for the piano. Ever since the first time they'd bumped into each other in the Room of Requirement, Florence had just felt a sort of... kinship to her. Even if their conversations had been awkward, they both liked music, and art, and she had found herself wishing to get to know her better.

There were many things she hadn't yet revealed to Isabella, but she felt a confidence within her that whenever she finally chose to, Isabella would have accepted all of it. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, maybe it was just hopelessness.

Maybe it was just the butterflies that made her blurt out, as Isabella was delicately setting down their cups on the wooden table, “I'm surprised you want anything to do with me at all. I'm a half-blood, in case you'd forgotten.”

Isa looked up, stunned, her big, black-lined eyes clouded with concern. “Don't be ridiculous. You mustn't think of Slytherins like that. Besides, I'm a teacher now. I have to be impartial.”

“Well, that's not my experience. Sprout favours us Hufflepuffs all the time. I got an Outstanding in my OWLs, and I didn't really think I deserved any more than an Exceeds Expectations, to be honest. And, my best friend that I grew up together with forgot all about me the minute I wasn't sorted into Slytherin. I never could have been, though. My mum's a Muggle, she _knew_ that.”

Isa was taken aback at the venom in Florence's words, even after six years. Guess there were some forms of betrayal that could never be forgiven. She knew something about that.

“Your best friend was Sophie, I remember that.” She said, surprising Florence. “She's Head Girl, now.” Why she added that, she didn't know. It wasn't like Florence didn't see Sophie at Art Club at least once a week. Isa was only realising now that she'd never seen them talk directly to each other.

“I've never been given any official positions,” Florence moaned then. “Not organised enough, I think.”

“Me neither.” Isabella omitted the part when she was more than happy that she'd never been burdened with the responsibility of being prefect in her school years. “It doesn't define your worth, though, Florence.”

“How are you so wise?” Florence exclaimed in frustration. “You're only... what, 24?”

“I'm 23, actually.” Isa corrected. “And I don't feel wise at all, if you really must know.”

“But do you remember when I said that I found the room looking for someone who would understand me? I'm starting to think that _is_ what the room gave me. It gave me you.” _God this sounds so awfully corny. Make it stop._

Isabella felt something weighing on her stomach right then. She wasn't sure how Florence meant those words. They sounded almost faintly romantic. She took a sip of her cinnamon hot chocolate, and quickly licked the whipped cream off her upper lip before Florence made any jokes about it. She truly was at a loss for words, but they could only be silent for so long.

“You never told me what it was, that you needed clarity about, you know.” _Shut up, shut up, shut up. You should be stopping this conversation before it gets any more intimate._ Not _encourage it._

Florence wanted to talk about it even less now than she did last month.

“It was nothing. I feel better now. I guess I'm just trying to find who I am.”

“Well, good luck with that,” said Isa, quite bitterly. “I'm 23 and I still don't think I've found it yet.”

“I think you're really cool, though. Like, you're closer in age to the students than the teachers, really. I almost feel like you're one of us.”

This was getting really personal. And _dangerous_. Isa slurped the last of her drink and set down the cup with a clink.

“I need to get going, now. Can you find your way back?” She asked, trying to look uninterested.

“I'll come with you,” Florence declared, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Isa was cornered. She couldn't say no.

They walked back in silence. There weren't many people about, and the snow was melting in the middle of the road, but still resisting on the pavements and, in some spots, turning to ice. Florence's uncle's house was nearest to them, at the far end of the main street; Isa would have to drop her off and keep walking for a few more minutes to get back to her family.

They stopped across the road from their destination. It was a brown brick house, and through the living room window, a Christmas tree could be seen, with multi-coloured fairy lights on it, and a congregation of people conversing excitably with each other. Isabella identified a flash of blonde hair as Grace Welch.

She was about to say her goodbyes; she took a breath and made to speak, but before she knew what was going on, Florence's lips were on hers, and she didn't push her away.

=

It was funny, how she'd seen it in slow-motion. Yes, she had sensed Florence getting closer to her, but her mind hadn't been quick enough to figure out _why_. She'd distracted herself with thoughts of how flawless Florence's skin looked, her otherwise pale complexion reddened by the cold. She had looked at her lips and the word _inviting_ had formed behind her half-closed eyes, and she'd felt a familiar, unwelcome sensation coursing through her body.

“I can't,” Isa whispered, but she pulled Florence down to her and kissed her again.

Boldly, Florence slipped her tongue into Isa's mouth, and her arms circled Isa's waist; despite the icy air around them, she felt enveloped by heat. Like she was feeling Isabella's warmth everywhere on her body rather than just her breath against her lips and her hands on her face. It was so warm inside her that it almost shocked her when she opened her eyes and remembered they were still standing in the snow.

“I can't,” Isabella repeated. Somehow, her hands were still resting on Florence's cheeks, and the effort it took to remove them felt almost inhuman. “Florence, I'm your teacher.”

She wished she couldn't read the hurt and rejection on Florence's face, but they were clear as day.

“You're not, though. You _supervise Art Club_. And I know you want this, Isabella. I can tell.”

Isa choked on her own breath hearing Florence say her name. She shouldn't even use it. She should call her “Miss”, at the very least, if not “Professor”. This was just... all wrong. But she _did_ want it.

“That doesn't mean it's right,” she explained, voice catching in her throat. “I'll see you in January, Florence. Have a happy new year.”

She hurried down the end of the main street without turning back, leaving Florence behind, on the verge of tears. If she didn't get herself inside soon, they would turn to ice.


	6. January

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Florence and Isabella's first kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angsty one. Sorry guys... it was needed. I hope you still like it, it wouldn't be a love story without some obstacles. xx

# January

The Hogwarts grounds were just as white when Isabella got back. She really missed the Slytherin dormitories, in the bowels of the ground, which gave her some extra warmth at times like these. Snakes were cold blooded creatures, after all. She really didn't appreciate the icy draft that was coming from under her window. She would need to get it looked at – her repairing spell had started to weaken within two months of casting it.

Isa had come back on the last possible day of Christmas break, to avoid bumping into Florence unless strictly necessary. She'd been thinking of nothing but how she should behave at their next club meeting, and kept coming up with nothing. Just nothing.

Florence had got under her skin too fast and too soon, and she couldn't compromise a good job and a good career just to try her hand at a relationship again. Her last one had been an absolute disaster.

Those kisses, though... they had reminded her of everything that was good and beautiful in the world. They had taken her back to the first time a girl had kissed her, back at a party during her bank apprenticeship.

The party took place in a majestic villa in Surrey, a strikingly white building that seemed old and new at the same time. Isabella was just standing with the other two apprentices, both boys, when a girl had approached them – Isa had obviously thought the girl was after one of the guys, but after dropping several hints that she wanted a drink, the boys had left them to go to the bar, and the girl had asked _her_ if she wanted to get out of there, like that had been her plan all along.

They'd walked out, into the gardens, and made small talk about their jobs, until the girl, who was French, had leaned down to kiss Isabella with all the calm in the world. Isa still remembered the way her heart had fluttered at the contact. The girl had asked if Isabella wanted to go home with her, and she'd said yes in a hazy state. They never ended up dating, though; Isa was too scared.

If everything could be like that – if kisses could be just kisses and sex could be just fun – then Isabella wouldn't have run away from Florence. But real life had rules and policies and this was a boarding school, and the last thing she wanted was gossip about her, or worse, to be kicked out less than half a year after joining in the first place.

A little part of her wanted Florence to just stop turning up to the Art Club. Another part of her wanted her to keep coming, because staring at alabaster skin and green eyes without touching, as far as she knew, was still perfectly allowed.

=

Her wish for Florence to drop out of Art Club was not granted. Not only was she in her usual seat on the first Friday of the new year, but she also stayed behind after everyone had left, clearly intentioned to speak to Isabella one-on-one.

“Club is dismissed, Florence,” she said, trying hard to keep her voice steady. “I'll see you next week.”

Florence stared past her, out the window, and looked pained as she spoke.

“So, the thing that you wanted to know, _Isabella_ ,” she punctuated, “the thing I was looking for in the Room of Requirement. Do you still want to know?”

But she didn't wait for a reply before explaining, “I was walking past that day, wondering if it was normal that all my life, I've had feelings for girls as well as boys. I never had anyone to talk to about that. My sister knows, but I hardly ever see her these days. She's taken on two new subjects, and has Quidditch practice nearly every afternoon. Anyway,” she paused, actually making eye contact with Isabella for once, “I was feeling particularly lonely and self-loathing that afternoon. And when you told me what that room did, I thought _this is it. This is why I'm here. This is a person who must have been through what I'm going through._ ”

Isa stared a little wide-eyed at Florence. Firstly, she'd never heard her utter that many words all in one go. Secondly, trust a bloody room to basically _out her_ to a student. This was ridiculous!

“So now go ahead, and try to deny that you understand what I'm saying. I thought you could help me. I _know_ you can. But you don't want to, and that's awful.”

Isabella couldn't hear herself over her own heartbeat, but she managed to ask “Help you... how?”

“I don't know, maybe tell me what it's been like for you. Give me some hope, instead of running away like a coward. All I wanted was a friend.”

Florence was getting herself mixed up. Surely there were other ways to 'give her hope' than _being with her_ , Isabella thought. Florence didn't seem to want a friend or a confidante: she wanted a girlfriend.

And a voice in Isa's head was saying, _if we weren't here in this place... in these roles... you would have got yourself one, you beautiful creature._

“I'm here now, Florence. What do you want to know?” Isabella retorted, her tone nearly a growl.

She knew that asking like that would put Florence at a loss, and true to form, Florence's response was a single sob, then she turned on her heels and let herself out of the classroom without as much as a goodbye.

=

The following week, Florence actually did miss the club session. Her housemate, Oline, explained that “she wasn't feeling well”, and Isa's stomach sank at the thought it probably wasn't true.

She felt like she wanted to be up in the Room of Requirement with her piano, but she was stuck in the Charms classroom for the next two hours. And when she finally went upstairs and walked past the tapestry three times wishing for the door to appear, it didn't. Someone else must have been using it already.

=

The theme for the last week of January was “seven deadly sins”. Isabella had had to explain the background a little, since most students wouldn't really be familiar with Christianity unless they were Muggle-borns (or had a Ravenclaw dad like Isa who liked to research religions in his spare time). 

Florence was back for this session, and chattier than usual. She declared that she had a fascination with anything dark and gloomy, and she had actually produced more than one piece of artwork to fit the topic. She insisted that she go first, and unveiled her take on 'pride' to begin with. This was a very interesting interpretation of the subject, in that she hadn't really depicted a proud person, but a victim of someone else's pride.

This was _her_ , Isabella thought. This was Florence, abandoned aged 11 by her best friend at the time, and still not over it. The four corners of the parchment were heavily painted in thick black brushstrokes; there was a nondescript girl figure in the middle of the sheet, but the perfectly straight-cut fringe of this character gave away her identity. You couldn't see her eyes, but a single tear was falling from them, coloured in blue on an otherwise black and white piece.

“This is what pride does. This is the result of making someone else feel _unworthy_ ,” Florence said by way of explanation, the last word barely a whisper. 

Isa realised she was holding her breath as her eyes darted to the left side of the room to Sophie, to catch her reaction. She looked sad, for once. Her jaw was clenching and unclenching, but she was still holding her head up. _Pride_ , Isabella thought, how appropriate.

If Isa had found this presentation awkward, though, she needn't have worried, because Florence's next piece was even more shocking.

It was subtle, though, and rationally, Isabella knew that only she could comprehend the true meaning of the drawing: a sanguine self-portrait of Florence sitting at a small round table, looking out of a window lined with snow. Her right hand under her chin, her left resting on the table. The image was unmoving, but Isa could see the nervous connotations of the hand on its own: it craved something to hold. Someone. 

“This is _lust_ ,” Florence explained. “It's wanting someone so badly, it absolutely consumes you. It's feeling empty by yourself, like it's the other person with their presence and their body who gives you life. Lust is selfish, it's running after happiness for your own self and not really caring what the other person might feel. Or _fear_.”

There were seven other students presenting their work that day, but Isabella didn't listen to a single one of them.

=

“Miss Welch, could you stay behind a minute?” Isa asked when the session was over. She got curious glances from more than one student for that, notably from Sophie, Ella and Oline. 

Florence hovered by the door and let everybody else slip out, then she turned towards Isa with an inquisitive look.

 _Muffliato_ , said Isabella pointing her wand at the door, closing it and soundproofing the classroom in one motion. This spell wasn't on the curriculum: she doubted that the Slytherins would manage to break it, although they were surely outside, trying. 

“What were you trying to achieve with that, Florence?” she pleaded, her eyes filling with tears. “ _What_?”

“I guess I just wanted you to know that I was serious about this, you know. I've not just... latched onto you because you're the only person around who happens to like girls. I like _you_.” 

Isa had thought about that, actually, and she was surprised that Florence had worked out one of her fears. Still, the thing she was most afraid of was losing her job, and she needed Florence to see that.

“I'm very lucky to be working here,” she explained, “you coming after me like that, in front of so many other people... is _dangerous_ , don't you understand?” 

Florence took a step back, wincing that she was the cause of the tears that were now streaming freely down Isabella's face. 

“But... they couldn't know...” 

“I can't get in trouble here, Florence. This is my career now. And if you're going to come after me and embarrass me at every session, then...” she took a deep breath to steady herself, but her voice still came out too small, and fragile. “...then I'd rather you didn't come to this club anymore.”

Florence looked down, fighting the urge of going over to Isabella to hold her and let her cry it out. 

“Okay,” she murmured before she let herself out. 


	7. February

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isa's asked Florence to leave the Art club, but McGonagall has other plans, and Florence doesn't give up so easily anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a really long chapter. I hope that makes up for the fact I haven't posted in a week. Also yes I used the lyrics intentionally.

# February

Hogwarts was now holding a Valentine's Day ball. They'd never celebrated it in quite such style, but it had become apparent to Isa that they were trying to incorporate more Muggle holidays into their calendar, out of guilt, perhaps, to those students who for years had been bullied and harrassed for being Muggle-borns.

Isabella had the day off. Thankfully, it was Saturday, so there were no lessons, no Art Club, and she didn't have to see another soul unless she chose to. Her plan was to get herself into the Room of Requirement bright and early, and not leave for at least half the day if she could help it.

Her being inside would prevent anybody else from coming in, unless they were also in dire need of a piano. Or unless it was Florence Welch, the only person in the school who knew what to wish for if she wanted to walk in on Isa.

She hoped that Florence would have something else to do, that day. Surely she had her fair share of suitors, as people were wont to do when they happened to be strikingly beautiful. She wondered how many people had asked Florence out to the dance, and who she'd eventually picked.

It didn't necessarily have to be a boy; Hogwarts wasn't _that_ conservative. But if Isa knew a little of how things worked between teenagers, she knew it was more than likely that the girls would be too shy to ask other girls out, and everyone including Florence would wait to be asked out by a boy. That was just how it worked, sadly.

The piano was still there. Isa breathed a sigh of relief and she almost wanted to caress the black stone walls of the Room of Requirement in gratitude. Finally, she felt at home, alone and invincible. She could just bang on the keys for as long as she needed to, and perhaps if she wished for an already-cooked roast she wouldn't even need to leave the room at lunchtime.

A rapping on the window startled her, a couple of hours into her playing. Bailey was flapping like mad outside the glass, trying to attract her attention. Isabella stood up quickly and went to open the window; Bailey fluttered inside and dropped something from his claws onto the floor: it looked like a rolled-up piece of parchment.

He rested on Isa's arm for a few moments and she pet his head, but she was eager to get to the piece of paper, see it was finally a note from Amy. They hadn't spoken since their break-up and it would be a year soon, but Isabella had never stopped hoping that Amy would change her mind and come back to her.

Of course the one time that she had given her heart and soul to someone, that person had broken her heart. Any other relationship, she'd treated light-heartedly, but no boy or girl she'd ever dated had felt like much of a loss. Amy, though - Amy was her _world_.

They'd met at the bank, go figure, where Amy had needed to open a bank account, having just come back from living in the States since the tender age of 3. Isabella had felt lucky enough to be appointed to be her service agent, because that meant she would get to look at a very pretty girl from across a desk for at the very least half an hour; she would make sure to invent a hitch or another with the paperwork, just so she could keep her there for longer.

Amy was bubbly and friendly, with raven hair and the darkest eyes Isa had ever seen. She'd been more than happy to tell her things about her studies, and Isa could see from the forms they'd filled out together that Amy was only a couple of years younger than herself. She had the equivalent of a NEWT in Arithmancy, and wanted to work as a curse-breaker one day.

Perhaps it was just that Amy was looking for a way into Gringotts; or maybe she was genuinely interested in Isabella – but when they parted that day, she did casually mention that she didn't know anyone in England and it would be nice to hang out sometimes. Isa had never been happier to give out her business card in her life.

She had fallen fast and hard; something she knew, now, that she never wanted to do again. Amy said Isa was her first girlfriend, and although Isa had dated girls before, she kind of felt the same way: if nothing else, it was the first time she was well and truly in love.

But after a few months, Amy had grown cruel and controlling. Every time Isabella mentioned being unhappy in her job, Amy would call her spoilt and ungrateful. Her dreams of being an artist were labelled “a waste of time”, and time and time again she had been told to “grow up”. Amy never wanted to go to concerts or exhibitions with Isabella, and thought her friends were “too bohemian” and “wouldn't get her anywhere in life”. Her attitude towards using other people to her advantage was more Slytherin than any snake Isabella had met through her seven years at Hogwarts – and that had included some pompous arseholes such as Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson.

Once Amy had built her own little circle of friends, Isabella would hardly ever be invited to their get-togethers, on the basis that she “wouldn't enjoy herself” as everyone was so driven towards success they would look down on her for having hobbies outside of work. Isa would torment herself with scenarios of what Amy got up to on those nights; if she asked her, they would argue, and god forbid Isa ever brought up the fact that Amy had never eventually found a job ( _yet_ , Amy said) despite all her _drive_. She did, however, enjoy and almost feel entitled to living rent-free at Isabella's.

One day, a colleague that Isa had never spoken to much had cornered her in the staff room, and told her that she'd bumped into Amy that weekend at a party, and saw her snogging at least two different girls. Isabella had broken down in tears as her biggest fears were confirmed, but she admired her work mate for doing the right thing and telling her. When she'd got home that night, ready to confront Amy with the truth, she was expecting remorse. She was expecting apologies. The words that followed shattered her heart into a million pieces, and it had never been the same since. “I _never_ loved you! God, how stupid must you be?”

So, even their first few months together had been a lie. The proof of just how much Isabella had been in love, was in the fact she'd shown some of her artwork to Amy. No other human being, magical or otherwise, had ever had the pleasure. Now Amy had ripped apart her soul, and Isa feared that any minute, she could have gone and spilled her deepest, darkest secrets to the world.

Her deep, dark secrets were probably very uninteresting to most people, but still, Isa felt violated and insecure. She wished she'd had the time to cast an obliviation charm before Amy had walked out on her forever.

Part of her was convinced that Amy still felt something for her. She must have done; they'd had so much fun together, at first. They were attached at the hip, and Isa didn't think Amy's happy smile could have been fake at the time. That was why she'd hoped for a birthday card on Halloween, and why it couldn't be a coincidence that she'd be receiving a message on Valentine's Day: it just _couldn't_. Surely Amy had seen the error of her ways; surely she wanted to give it another try.

Isabella unravelled the small piece of parchment, tied together with packaging string, and squinted when she saw a calligraphy she didn't recognise.

It said:

_I've fallen out of favour and I've fallen from grace_ __  
_Fallen out of trees and I've fallen on my face_ __  
_Fallen off of broomsticks, out of windows too_ _  
_ _Fell in your opinion when I fell in love with you_

_F._

Isa brought her fingertips to her mouth; before she knew it, she was crying.

_=_

The rest of the afternoon was spent in a daze; she even forgot to eat. She sat at the piano, the parchment still rolled up on her lectern, and she couldn't help but feel that those words sounded like a song. She spent the afternoon trying to find a melody for it but, as the sun was going down and she realised she hadn't wished for torches or a chandelier in the Room of Requirement, she forced herself out. She wondered where Florence was. She was almost surprised not to find her in the corridor; she expected there to be a follow-up of some kind to her note.

Isabella couldn't even bring herself to go to the kitchens for some food, scared as she was to pass too close to the Hufflepuff common room. She was a Transfiguration teacher, dammit; surely there was an object she didn't need in her bedroom that could be transformed into an edible apple. After that, she could maybe put in an appearance at the Valentine's ball, if nothing else to get her hands on at least one decent meal that day.

=

She swapped her usual high-collared dress for a corset (how did Muggles even _tie_ corsets by themselves with no magic? Surely it was impossible) and a long brocade skirt. She didn't want to stand out, and she would have, if she didn't dress for the occasion. The colour scheme of the party was red and pink, so she magicked her blue corset into a bright, fiery scarlet and wore a fringed black shawl over it. It was a rather fetching ensemble, but she wasn't really planning on attracting anyone with it. Her heart was already spoken for – she just wasn't sure by whom anymore.

The plan was to grab some food, put it in her extensible satchel, and go calm herself down on the shores of the lake. People avoided the lake in winter because it got extremely cold, but Isa knew advanced enough spells that she wouldn't feel a thing.

When she stepped into the Great Hall, she couldn't help but search the crowd for Florence. She thought she'd find her surrounded by boys, instead she was just dancing along with her sister in the middle of the hall, wearing a pale pink, floaty gown that clung to her slender figure and made her look somewhat like a fairy. She looked happy and carefree and Isabella had a hard time matching that to the sorrowful, poetic words that Florence had sent her that morning.

The piece of parchment was somewhere in her extensible satchel, where it had recently been joined by a sausage roll and a red velvet cupcake. She hadn't had the heart to throw it away or even just separate herself from it for two minutes. It was a part of her now; it made her feel very painfully _alive_ that such words had been written about her.

Isa was about to slip out of the room and the castle, when she got intercepted by professor McGonagall herself. 

“Miss Summers, could I have a word, please?”

She felt the blood drain from her face, which probably made her look even more vampire-like, considering what she was wearing; all she could do was nod briskly, and follow her boss into the entrance hall. She knew she didn't have anything to fear: if she really was in trouble, they wouldn't have just casually chatted outside a party – she would have been called to McGonagall's office. But the guilt she was living with for her growing feelings for Florence was warping her brain.

McGonagall cleared her voice before saying, “It appears that one of the students attending Art Club has dropped out, Miss Summers. I was just wondering if you knew what might have caused that?”

Isabella gulped. Was it worth lying to her boss?

“Professor... it was brought to my attention that Florence Welch has a, uhm... an infatuation. With _me_. I'm afraid this might have something to do with her leaving the club.” It was a part-truth. She didn't mention that she'd been the one who'd asked Florence to leave.

“Miss Summers –” the old witch paused to find the right words, “I'm not sure if you're aware, but Miss Welch is not very strong, academically. She's a lovely girl, though, so anything she has an inclination for should be encouraged. She's only down for two NEWTs at the end of this year. She has more chances of becoming an artist or a singer than anything else.” 

Oh, great, just great. She was being made to feel responsible for Florence's future now?

“But, Professor -” Isa interjected, “is it even appropriate?”

“Miss Welch is of age, Miss Summers.” McGonagall said, with a raised eyebrow. “She's free to follow her heart as she pleases. As are _you_.”

Isabella looked down; locks of blonde hair fell around her face and she hoped it didn't show that she was blushing. Perhaps she'd heard this wrong, but McGonagall had just given her her _blessing_. Why on earth she would do that, it wasn't clear, but Isa wasn't going to insist any further for sure.

“I'll talk to her, Professor.” Isa mumbled, to the floor more so than to her boss. She didn't raise her head again until McGonagall's feet had disappeared from her line of sight. 

=

Florence had seen Isabella; she had seen her come in, sneak some food into a bag that was surely enchanted because it just seemed to never get full or even just heavier, and then follow McGonagall outside for a chat. She had kept them in her peripheral vision, and bolted to follow Isabella the minute McGonagall had stepped back into the hall. Only Grace knew where she was going. But even she didn't know why.

Going after Isabella was easy: she didn't know she was being followed, so she wasn't walking particularly fast or making a mystery of her destination. She liked to sit by the lake anyway – Florence may be scatty, but at least she had a good memory. The only thing she needed to watch out for, was not tripping and not making any noise.

Isabella walked right past the skylight that was the only window in the Slytherin common room, and sat down at an angle that was definitely nowhere within the Slytherins' view. She got a lantern out of her satchel – definitely enchanted, Florence thought – and did some sort of incantation to make the fire bigger, and warmer. 

Florence stepped closer and looked at the orange glow flickering on Isabella's skin. She looked so beautiful and peaceful, she felt almost sorry she had to interrupt her thoughts. But she needed to know something.

“What did you think of my note?”

Isa snapped to attention, turning to her left to see Florence wearing her flimsy pink dress and nothing more, and thinking that, one, she must have been freezing and two, if she sat down next to her she would have ruined her outfit. Pointing her wand to a nearby stone, she turned it into a pillow, then determinedly said _Accio_! The pillow flew to her and she set it on the grass, patting it to invite Florence to sit with her.

Once they were level, Isabella had to fight the urge to reach out and touch Florence's face. The reflection of the flames was bringing out the red in her hair, and she looked ethereal and unreal. She was everything that Isa wanted. She was everything she couldn't have.

“Oh, Florence,” she sighed. “Can't you just enjoy your last year of school without hitting on your teachers, huh?”

She looked frustrated, and Florence wanted nothing more than to hold her and reassure her. Feeling bold, she put her hand on top of Isabella's and looked her straight in the eye. It was hard to tell what colour they were at the best of times, but in the dark, with only a fire to give them any light, they almost glowed yellow.

“Tell me what you're running from... Isabella. Why are you scared?” Her fingers closed around Isa's. Florence had to tell herself this was _not_ a good time to attempt another kiss. As close as they might be, she needed to give Isabella space to explain herself, and not feel attacked.

“It's not your place to know, Flo,” Isa responded, immediately realising she'd let a pet name slip out she'd never really been authorised to use.

Thinking she might as well return the courtesy, Florence said, “I will wait for you... _Isa_. You have to know that, ok? I _will_ wait for you.”

Isa's eyes went wide at the term of endearment. She didn't think she deserved any of this. She didn't deserve to have this joyful, intelligent girl fall for her, and she didn't deserve to have her heart broken again, because that was _clearly_ what was going to happen, if she ever decided to give it a shot. She'd been burnt once before, and she knew what they said... _fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice..._

“McGonagall wants you to come back to Art Club, Florence,” Isabella went back to business. “Please consider it. It will be less suspicious if you're there, really, than if you're not.”

“I will come back, on one condition,” Florence replied averting eye contact, “that we meet up in the Room of Requirement and play together again.”

As much as Isa told herself that it was only important for her _career_ that she said yes, just to get Florence back in her class, her job was the last thing on her mind when she said, “Deal.”

=

One week after that conversation, after Florence's return to Art Club (she'd only missed two weeks, after all), they met outside the Room of Requirement one Saturday morning, and went in together. The piano was still in the same place as always, and Isa casually slipped the rolled-up parchment with Florence's poem on the lectern, wondering if she would realise.

She played some scales almost robotically to warm up Florence's voice, all the while thinking how to best breach the subject. Embarrassed that she couldn't think of anything better, Isa waved the small scroll under Florence's nose. 

“Correct me if I’m wrong but... is this meant to be a song?”

“It is, actually.” Florence hadn't really planned to dwell on that at these meetings, and she was quite embarrassed to have to recall her desperate gesture to get Isa's attention. 

“I've been trying to put this to music, in the last few days. I don't suppose you'd like to help me out? It's beautiful, you know.” Isa left out the part where she felt weird knowing it had been written for her.

“There is more to it... if you'd told me, I would have brought the whole thing.” For the first time, Florence felt very uneasy, having to sing a full love song to the object of her affection. “But I pretty much remember it all anyway.”

“Ok, so I was thinking something like this...” 

Isabella played a few, tentative chords, slowly enough for Florence to find her bearings. It came pretty natural to her to adapt herself to the rhythm, finding a melody and sticking to it. All she had to do was sing the words instead of saying them.

She was facing away from Isabella, towards the window, because she really couldn't bear to look at her directly. She just let the music take over her body and started invoking a name written again and again and again and _again_ until she finally belted out a note that sounded like a cry of anguish. 

It reached deep, deep into Isa's soul and kicked everything inside her, set fire to it for good measure, and took no prisoners.

Isabella felt the first of the tears run down her face. She couldn't wipe it away because she was playing, following Florence. The crescendo came to an end, and Florence went back to what Isa considered to be the verse. When it was clear Florence had finished, she improvised a coda, only to lift her fingers from the keys one final time and silently admit to herself that her hands were shaking. 

Florence noticed, and came over to her stool. Isabella scooted to one side to make room for her.

“Are you ok?” Florence asked with genuine concern. Isa didn't think it was a very good idea for them to be sitting that close. She could count all the different shades of red in Florence's fringe.

“I... don't know how you do it.” she managed to say. “I almost want to say, 'you shouldn't be wasting your time like this, you have NEWTs', but right now I'm thinking, sod the NEWTs, you should sing as a _career_.”

“Studying will happen when my head is clearer, I guess. I care about my NEWTs, you know. Just... not as much as I care about _this_.”

Isabella was about to ask which _this_ Florence meant, when someone on a broom flew up right outside their window and looked in. It was Grace, in her Quidditch practice uniform. Florence actually flailed at the unexpected meeting, and she got up to open the window, greeting her sister enthusiastically. Grace waved back with a grin when she realised who was inside the room.

When Florence turned around, Isa was gone. 


	8. March (1 of 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Room of Requirement develops a mind of its own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> March is a really long chapter, so I had to divide it into 3 parts. As much as I liked the January and February chapters, I am really unconvinced about this one and it's probably my least favourite so far. I guess it makes sense in my head but I wasn't quite able to translate that into the writing. Hope you enjoy anyway xx

# March

The deal was that they would do this every other week. They didn't speak to each other much outside of it: Florence would have liked to, but Isa was keeping things extremely professional. It wasn't that she'd been tricked into these jam sessions: she had given her full agreement, but anything that was likely to amplify her attraction to Florence just flooded her with guilt.

Isabella arrived for their next appointment a couple of minutes early, wished for her black baby grand, and walked through the door confidently. What she saw when she got inside stopped her dead in her tracks.

The piano was still there, sure. But it was in the middle of a street, mostly covered in snow. The far wall of the Room of Requirement was still the same, with the high windows, and the wall behind Isa was also the same cold, black stone as usual. But on the other two sides of the room – on the two sides of the piano – there was a replica of the main street in Aldeburgh. The exact spot outside Florence's uncle's house, to be precise.

“What the...” said Florence, walking into the room.

Isa spun around immediately. “Did _you_ wish for this?”

“Not really.” Florence looked as confused as she was, but she seemed quite happy to take in the townscape on either side of them. “All I wish for anymore when I want to come in, is 'to find Isabella Summers'. This is so perfect, though!!”

Isa shook out of her reverie and began walking down the small stretch of pavement. When she came to the low wall they'd been standing by when they kissed, she touched the snow to see if it really did feel cold. It did, and she retracted her hand in pain.

“You think snow's perfect?” she asked, turning towards Florence.

“No, not the snow. Or, not _just_ the snow.” Florence walked up until they were standing right in front of each other, and Isa could feel the butterflies in her stomach, alerting her to danger and anticipation.

“Can't you see, Isa? This is your heart's desire. _You_ wished this into existence.”

Isa couldn't find any arguments to contradict that. Indeed, she had been reliving the intimate moment they'd shared ever since it happened, toying with ideas of how it could have gone differently. It felt like the Room was giving her the possibility to put things right, in a way; to take a chance.

Florence took a step forward and braced herself for the inevitable.

Isa lifted her face to meet hers and kissed her like there was no tomorrow.

=

Isabella's lips were just as soft as Florence remembered. It had been a lonely couple of months without them. She didn't quite know how being there in the snow has changed Isa's mind, but she certainly wasn't going to complain about it.

She wanted to cry, though, and that could be quite unbecoming when the person she'd wanted for the past four months was finally letting her barriers down and kissing her. She took Isabella's face in both her hands, and wished that they never had to come up for air, but unfortunately, that was impossible.

When they separated and opened their eyes, she saw a single tear run down Isa's cheek. Florence's lips formed a perfect “O” in concern, but Isabella smiled through the pain and with some effort, managed to whisper “I'm so sorry.”

“Don't be.” Florence whispered back. “I'm not stupid. I can tell you don't really trust people.”

“I tried to fight this... I really tried... but I can't make you pay for someone else's mistakes... Flo.”

Florence had no clue what she meant by that, but there would be time to discover it, for sure. Right now, she just wanted to kiss Isabella, feel her breath inside her mouth, and forget everything that came before.

Isa's bottom lip was between her teeth when she heard a noise that prompted her to stop and look around. The room had shifted again while their eyes were closed and this time, Florence did not recognise their surroundings at all. The windows were suddenly smaller, and the glazing modern. It looked like a small flat, with dark hardwood floors. The shuffling she'd heard was a gust of wind coming from outside, which had caused the heavy blue curtains to flap.

“This is getting out of control,” she said, a little scared. “Where are we?”

Isabella looked utterly petrified.

“This is... was... my flat in London.” She explained. She wasn't sure what the Room of Requirement was doing, and she was terrified that a third person might appear at any time – and that the person would be Amy.

“Did... bad things happen here?” Florence asked.

Isabella thought back to all the fights, the shouting matches, “ _I_ never _loved you! God, how stupid must you be?_ ” and her throat closed up again.

“Isa, I think the room wants you to let go of the bad memories and get some closure. Replace them with good ones,” she suggested, as her hand came up to caress Isabella's cheek again. She lowered her head so their foreheads were touching, and whispered, “I love you.”

It took her a lot of effort to get the words out, and it was risky, but she only cared about reassuring Isabella right now.

“Oh, Florence,” Isa choked up. She wrapped her arms around Florence, and rested her head on her chest. On a scale of one to ten, how inappropriate was it for her to start sobbing in the arms of the girl she'd rejected for weeks? She needed deliverance from her nightmare relationship with Amy, the relationship she'd never uttered a word about to anyone, that had destroyed her and made her so distrusting.

“I got my heart broken right here, in this place,” she confessed, “I can't even look around it hurts so much. And I most certainly didn't wish to see it again. All I want to look at right now, is you.”

She pulled Florence down to her and kissed her softly, once, twice, until the tightness in her chest started to dissipate and she could almost feel the corners of her mouth tugging into a smile. Why on earth had she denied herself this for so long?, when it felt so good, so sweet, and so heavenly.

Florence took her arm gently, and pulled her towards the foot of the bed. They sat, hands linked together in Florence's lap, fingers caressing fingers, still incredulous they had finally found each other. They'd started something unstoppable, now, and they had to make up for lost time.

Isa's eyes were the colour of the sky before a thunderstorm.

“I don't know why you stuck with me, Florence, but I'll do my best so that you don't regret it. Now will you please get me out of here.”

Florence looked in the direction of where the door to the Room of Requirement was supposed to be. Relieved to see it was still there, she linked fingers with Isa and led her out by the hand. She had to let go as soon as they were out in the corridor, and both of them needed to steady their breath for a minute.

“...the fuck was that.” Isabella cursed, losing all propriety for a minute in front of her student. “Where can we go now?”

Florence was awkwardly standing next to her, her hair falling around her face like a curtain, praying that no one turned a corner just then only to find them like that. There was nowhere they could go. The teachers' quarters were off-limits to the students. And even if Isa could, technically, enter the Hufflepuff common room now, what was the point when there were going to be a couple hundred people there?

“I'm going back in,” Florence declared, “give it a couple of minutes and then just... wish to find me, ok?”

She started pacing in a circle in the corridor – they generally needed to walk past the exact point the door was hidden three times before it actually appeared – Isabella was still standing with her back against the wall and her arms down her sides.

The door made no sound when it materialised. Florence slipped in and looked back at Isa. She wasn't smiling, but her green eyes felt reassuring. “Two minutes. You'll be fine.” Then, as a reminder, “I love you.”

=

Florence had no idea what she would find once she got in; in fairness, she thought she'd find herself on the shores of the Black Lake, because she knew that was Isabella's favourite place. But when she stepped in, it was pretty obvious where she was.

A replica of the Slytherin dormitories. The room was still square, and it had kept the black stone walls and floor, but the windows had been obscured and covered with damask curtains, so it appeared to be night-time. There were two four-poster beds against each side wall, shrouded in green and silver hangings. She looked at the nameplates on each bed: the one in the far corner, by the window, was labelled “Isabella Summers”.

The ceiling looked like it was lit by silver fairy lights. And the best thing was, Florence could hear the sounds of waves, and she herself quite liked that.

“Oh, god... _what_ did you wish for?” Came Isa's voice from behind her. She was looking around, transfixed: she'd never thought she'd see this place again.

“Somewhere you'd feel _safe_.” Florence smiled, and clapped her hands. Again, it reminded Isa of an innocent child, and she felt another wave of guilt for how cold she'd been to her since their first kiss in the snow.

The past few minutes had felt like days, and she felt ten years older now. But it was time to put the fear behind and be honest. Isabella closed the distance between them; she all but ran into Florence's arms.

Taking her face in her hands, Isa closed her eyes and heaved a sigh. “I am so sorry for how I treated you,” she repeated.

Florence giggled, actually giggled, like she didn't have a care in the world.

“It doesn't matter. You're mine now. You are, aren't you?” She asked, with a mock-suspicious look.

Isabella let her kisses do the talking.


	9. March (2 of 3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***WARNING***  
> This chapter contains explicit sex.  
> I did not rate this fanfic as explicit because to me it's more about the story and the personal journey of the characters. I didn't want people to think that this fic was 60'000 words of smut because it really isn't. But just in case this isn't your thing, you can even skip this chapter and you should still be able to follow the plot, I think.  
> For those who love smut, I hope you enjoy. xx

They found themselves in a tangle of arms and legs on what had once been Isa's dorm bed. It wasn't very wide, as if they needed any more excuses to be huddled together and breathe each other's breaths. Florence thought Isabella looked young and vulnerable when she was smiling like that, and the fact those smiles were _just for her_ knocked the wind out of her chest. No smile from a boy had ever made her feel that way: if she wasn't already lying down, her legs would have probably given way.

Her left hand was playing with strands of blonde hair; meanwhile, she could feel Isabella's index finger tracing idle circles on her stomach, under her blouse. Florence wanted to do the same in response, but Isa was wearing a much more complicated dress to get under, besides, she didn't know if it would be too much, too soon. Right now, though, clothes felt very cumbersome, and considering they were in a room that was practically undetectable, it just seemed like too good an occasion to pass up.

She gave Isa's hair one last stroke and lowered her hand until it met Isa's, gently pulling it from her stomach and moving it in between her legs.

Isabella looked up sharply, and her questioning glare met eyes so filled with desire they didn't even seem the same colour anymore. The reflection of the rich green Slytherin hangings might have something to do with it.

“Florence -” she tried to scold her.

“I'm not a baby, Isa.” Florence murmured. Burying her face in Isabella's blonde hair, she whispered in her ear, “I want this just as much as you do.”

Isa felt a jolt of electricity course through her as Florence's mouth left her ear and trailed kisses down her neck and collarbones. Isa was wearing a black halterneck dress that opened with a zipper down the back, and Florence felt blindly for it, pulling it down when she found it.

“Florence -” Isa repeated, but her hand found its way out from between Florence's shorts and went up to her breast anyway. She wasn't even wearing a bra.

“Yesss.” Florence gave her a hiss of encouragement as her own hand peeled down Isabella's dress.

Isabella caressed the silky skin just under Florence's breast and her thumb skimmed her nipple. She could see Florence holding her breath, and twisted gently, once, twice, until Florence threw her head back and parted her lips. Being the cause of _that_ took Isa's breath away.

Unfortunately, it also made her want to rip off Florence's clothes, but her aggressive streak needed to stay in check for now; she didn't want to scare Florence off and look totally desperate in the process.

Florence had fantasised about this a fair few times, though, and she was exactly where she wanted to be. She wanted to see all of Isabella, and set to pull her dress all the way down, which was a bit of a struggle.

“From now on, Muggle clothing on your days off, do we have a deal?”

Isabella covered her face with one hand as she chuckled; she was being straddled by one of her students, who had _just_ undressed her and was now dictating her fashion choices. Florence was also, she had to admit, the most enticing sight she'd ever seen. Even if she was still fully clothed, she just looked determined and irresistible. Her mascara was starting to smudge a little under her eyes, which made them appear deeper, decadent and very, very sexy.

Florence took in the curves of Isa's body: her breasts, her waist, her thighs. She wanted to touch everything and didn't know where to start. Her fingertips trailed from the hem of Isa's knickers, up her stomach and reached behind her to unclasp her bra; she looked up to see Isa biting her bottom lip, looking wistful; her blonde hair was splayed upon the pillow and down her shoulders.

She placed her hands on either side of Isa's head and it sounded like it took her a lot of effort to talk. “I want you so much,” she said with a sigh.

Isa brought her hand up to play with strands of Flo's fine, coppery hair, before sliding it up the inside of her thigh. Florence was wearing loose fitting shorts, so it was easy for Isabella to reach under them, caressing the spot where the back of Florence's thigh met her arse.

She had to ask now, before it was too late. “Flo... have you done this before?”

Florence shook her head. “Not with a girl, no.”

Well, _that_ was a huge responsibility.

She ran her fingers across the outside of Florence's underwear and found her damp and inviting. Florence tensed up so much, she couldn't sustain her own weight anymore, and let herself fall on top of Isa.

“I'll go slow, baby,” arousal made Isabella say things like that without thinking. She hoped it didn't sound too corny or intimidating. “Let's make you comfortable.”

She rolled Florence onto her back and stayed on her side, unbuttoning her shorts whilst Florence disposed of her own blouse.

“You can do whatever you want to me.” Florence choked up. Slow or fast; gentle or rough; she didn't really care. She just wanted Isa _now_.

She reared her head from the pillow and took Isa's nipple into her mouth. It was hard, and she looked up at Isabella to see how she was doing: if the look on her face was anything to go by, she was enjoying it. Florence flickered her tongue a little faster and Isabella stilled for a second, her breath catching audibly in her throat.

Isa reached for Florence's knickers again. Sliding her hand inside, she nearly orgasmed from the wetness that welcomed her. _I did this. She wants me._

“Oh god,” Florence cried out, and let herself fall back on the bedspread again. Isa turned her attention to her breasts next, sucking and kissing her nipples while her right hand was deftly rubbing Flo's clit. Florence reached up to pull her closer. Isa decided to nestle her head in Flo's neck, and lightly bite her skin. It had a sweet scent, and her hair smelled like coconut. Her nipple accidentally brushed Florence's, which gave both their bodies an unexpected thrill of pleasure.

“Isa,” Florence didn't even know how she still managed to talk, “inside, please, Isa _please_.”

Isabella did as she was asked and in that moment she was so, so glad that Florence was not a virgin, or she wouldn't have coped with the pressure. Sliding in and out of her, she forced herself to keep her eyes open, so she could see Flo writhing on the pillows, her moans rising in pitch the faster Isa thrust into her. Florence called out her name, too, sometimes, in a soft, pleading tone which drove Isabella wild and made her go harder.

Finally, Flo gasped and opened her eyes wide, and Isa felt her clench tight, tight around her finger and then go limp. Her breathing grew ragged, though, when it should have been slowing down, and Isabella looked down to see Florence weeping quietly.

“Oh my god,” she panicked, quickly slipping out of Florence and resting her hand just outside her entrance, “sweetheart, did I hurt you?”

She didn't even know what was wrong with her, with all the sudden terms of endearment. She just knew she'd denied herself happiness for way too long. She cared about this girl and she was damn well going to let her know.

Florence's smile was so wide, it melted all her worries away.

“No, I'm just... that was a little overwhelming.” She reassured Isa. “No one has ever made me feel like that before. It was _intense_. I don't know if I can return the favour, now!” she giggled through the tears, self-deprecatingly.

“You don't have to, Flo.” Isa smiled back, still enjoying the contact of skin on skin.

“I _want_ to.” Florence stated simply. She went back to running her hands down the sides of Isa's body, thinking of the amount of times she'd dreamed of this, late at night when she prayed everyone else in her dorm was asleep. “You're so beautiful. You look like an angel.”

This made Isabella burst out laughing. “Ah, I don't know what angels _you've_ seen growing up, but I can guarantee you an angel I am not.” This felt wonderful, to have a gorgeous girl in her bed that she could joke with after she'd just made her come. _Allow yourself to be happy, Isabella._

Florence rolled on top of Isa so she was on her back. “Angel or not, Isabella Summers, I really, really want to touch you.”

Isa raised an eyebrow. “Well, I'm not stopping you.”

=

Florence started from Isa's breasts, praying that her nervousness wasn't showing. She wanted – no, needed – this to live up to her night-time fantasies, in which her arousal trumped her inexperience and she made Isabella come screaming her name.

She took one erect nipple in her mouth and sucked and grazed with her teeth, looking up at Isa's beautiful face contorting in a mask of delight. Whenever Isabella remembered to open her eyes, she would stare at Florence in disbelief. Disbelief that she was letting her do these things to her, and disbelief that Flo could _want_ her. She didn't seem at all innocent now; she was a determined young woman going in for the kill.

When Florence finally touched her, she was so wet she was almost embarrassed; having a hand down her knickers that wasn't her own was enough of an event, but it was even better to know that this wasn't just one of her one night stands: they actually felt the same way about each other.

Florence pulled away, and now stood on her knees between Isabella's parted legs. Her fingers were tracing the outline of Isabella's opening, waiting for the right moment, the blast of courage needed to go inside.

Isa had a perfect view of Florence's body now: her soft, round breasts, hardened nipples just out of her reach; her narrow waist and the beautiful curve of her stomach, dipping into frilly knickers that couldn't hide her still-swollen lips. This was the push Florence needed to slip her finger inside: she was starting to feel self-conscious being watched like that; she needed Isa to close her eyes and focus on her own sensations.

And Isabella did, parting her lips and grinding her hips against Flo's hand; feeling bold, Florence added another finger, and Isabella yelped in response, crying out, “Yeah!! Like that...”

With each thrust of Florence's fingers, Isa moaned louder, “Oh, oh, _oh_ ”, feeling her climax build inside her, almost as a vengeance for all the weeks she'd repressed her attraction to this beautiful girl. Florence pumped furiously, wildly, wanting nothing else than to see Isabella come at her hands – quite literally - and when Isabella screamed out her orgasm, it was better than any music Florence had ever heard in her life.

Isa smiled as she tried to catch her breath, the occasional jolt of pleasure still coursing through her. She closed her fingers around Flo's wrist and slowly pulled her hand out of her body, finally understanding how Florence had felt being so overwhelmed that she wanted to cry. She kept herself together, though, and tugged gently at Flo's arm so she collapsed half on top of her. Their shoulders were touching and they were face to face, a mesh of red and blonde hair splayed upon the pillows.

Abandoning all reason, Isabella could only ask, “Do you think we could spend the whole night here?”

“Even if we could, my housemates would wonder where I am,” Florence responded, sadly.

“Fair enough,” Isabella sighed. “We're gonna have to work out the logistics of this...”

Relief washed over Florence as she realised Isabella has conquered her fears and wasn't going to leave this as an isolated episode.

“So, you're not gonna run away again?”

Isabella thought of all the implications. She could lose her job if anyone found out; they could both be kicked out of the school. She would only avoid prison because Florence was already seventeen and, at least in this world, that made her legal. But Flo wouldn't be able to take her NEWTs and Isabella would never find another teaching job again, or maybe a job full stop.

And yet, right now, she didn't care. They could be kicked out and go live together in a house in Hogsmeade or London or Aldeburgh, and they could both wait tables and come back home to a piano in the living room, and a fireplace and every time they would attempt to play some music, it would turn into hot kisses and sex within seconds. They could even live in the tiniest little flat, like the one she'd had in London; she didn't _need_ a fireplace. All she needed was a roof over her head, a blanket and, well, Florence. It was scary and surprising to admit all of this to herself when she'd sworn that she'd never, ever let this happen again. But she was only 23 and she was going to at least try another shot at happiness.

The way Florence had fought for her, Isa had no doubt that her feelings were sincere; she would have grown bored much sooner otherwise.

Her mind was made up. “I'm staying for as long as you'll have me.”

Florence had got herself out of bed and was retrieving the pieces of her outfit from the floor as she prepared to slip out of the Room of Requirement, alone. Isabella would follow when she was ready, and then they'd figure out a way to make this work without raising too many suspicions.

Isa slipped under the covers, still half naked, wondering if she could actually just sleep there for the night. When Flo was at the door and ready to go, she called out, “Oh, and Florence? I love you too.”

  
  



	10. March (3 of 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabella and Florence try to establish the terms of their clandestine relationship.

The following week passed in a blur. Florence was so near and yet so far; Isabella would see her at breakfast, at the far end of the Hufflepuff table: Florence would eat with her body turned slightly to the right so that she could watch Isa out of the corner of her eye.

They hadn't been able to be alone anywhere and Isabella's mind was occupied with flashbacks of kissing Florence and getting lost in her green eyes. Her entire body tingled with the memories and she lived in constant anticipation that Florence might appear around a corner or they might pass each other on a staircase.

The only times she could really concentrate were her Transfiguration lessons with the first and second year students: she knew, then, that there was no way she would catch a glimpse of Florence anywhere, and she could keep her thoughts together. At the very least, that meant that she was still doing her job right, and she was in a good mood on top of it.

Friday couldn't come soon enough; Florence stepped into the Charms classroom five minutes earlier than normal. Isabella was already inside, she'd probably had the same thought. Although they couldn't kiss, for fear that someone might walk in unexpectedly, they both sported giant grins at being finally reunited.

Going straight to the point, Isabella asked, under her breath, “Room of Requirement tomorrow?”

Their music sessions were only supposed to be every other week, but Isa felt pretty confident that the rules had probably changed after last Saturday.

“Aww, I can't,” Florence frowned, “Grace has Quidditch.”

That was why Florence was a Hufflepuff, Isa thought. Nothing to do with her bloodline, and everything to do with putting her family before her own needs. By comparison, 17-year-old Isabella would have blown off any friend or family member to pursue her own selfish interests. She was lucky she wasn't born into a Slytherin household, where they would have forced her to uphold her family honour. By comparison, Florence wasn't being forced to support Grace, she thought: she did it because she _wanted_ to. Hufflepuff.

She was in two minds, though, Isa could see it, and she found herself reluctantly agreeing that it was better if she went to her sister's match against Ravenclaw. It would look way too suspicious if Florence changed her habits all of a sudden. She'd never missed Grace playing Quidditch in the two years since she'd joined the team.

“How about by the lake, in the afternoon?”

Isa nodded briskly, just a split second before Aliya swung the class door open, and entered with Jessica in tow. Isabella wouldn't be able to kiss Florence outdoors, but just being with her was better than not seeing her at all.

=

When Florence arrived, Isabella was already sitting with her back flat against the wall, almost willing herself to be invisible. Florence smiled when she saw that Isa had accepted her tip about Muggle clothing on her days off: she was wearing a short, pleated skirt and an oversized woolly jumper; she really didn't look like a teacher at all.

She sat down next to Isabella, longing to kiss her and perfectly aware that it was too dangerous. She ran her fingers down Isabella's forearm, however, and let them rest on top of her hand.

“How was the match?” Isa asked to break the ice.

“Good. They won. She's partying now with the rest of Gryffindor.” Florence looked almost _too_ chipper, like she was making an effort to be casual; in reality, her heart was racing and her head was rushing at being so near Isabella in the open. There weren't any walls to protect them today, no transforming rooms that surprised them with floods of memories both good and bad. She felt exposed.

“I can't stop thinking about you,” she confessed, with a timid smile.

Isabella let out a low, guttural chuckle. “I could say the same thing.”

“You don't have any idea how beautiful you are. I wish I'd brought something to paint you, right now.” Flo's earnest tone made her sound older than her years. She spoke softly, like everything was a secret of the utmost importance. “I drew a lot of sketches of you last year at club.”

Guilt washed over Isabella once more, and she decided to tell the truth. “Flo? I _did_ see them. I flipped through your entire sketchbook.”

“You did?” Florence didn't look mad. If anything, she sounded relieved.

“Yeah. Sorry I didn't tell you. I didn't know how to interpret them at the time.” Isa's voice had the sweetest, most loving undertones when she was relaxed and vulnerable. “I still don't, you know.”

“Well, after that first time I saw you at the piano... nah, you're gonna think I'm crazy now.”

 _No, I don't,_ Isabella thought. _I think you're perfect. Your smile is perfect. Your teeth are perfect. Your eyes are perfect._

“Go on,” she nudged Florence with her shoulder. She was pretty sure she'd just fluttered her eyelashes at her. _Oh, Isa, you're falling so hard._

“I thought it must mean it was destiny that I'd meet you and it was destiny that you'd play some sort of part in my life.”

Isabella shook her head. “I don't believe in destiny, at all. The hours I spent in Divination class were the biggest waste of my life that I'll never get back.”

Florence liked how Isa was getting animated. Really, thinking about it, they needed to get to know each other better now that the tensions between them had relented. There was a lot she still didn't know about Isabella and a lot she wanted to know.

“I needed someone who wouldn't judge me. All my life I'd found girls just as interesting as boys, and it really didn't bother me, but I knew that people would find it weird. I was thinking of that when the room appeared. You've been with girls before, haven't you.”

It was a statement, not a question. Isabella tensed up. “Yeah.” She didn't elaborate further.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“There isn't a lot to say.” Isa lied. Would Florence walk away if she knew how she'd let herself be treated? Scrap that – would Florence walk away regardless? “I've had boyfriends. But the only time I've ever really been in love, was with a girl.”

That was the best she could summarise it.

“I can relate to that,” Florence commented, casually.

The implications weren't lost to Isabella; she felt a shiver shake her body and her blood pump faster. She'd said she loved Florence once already, but admitting to being _in_ love was too daunting yet; still, she decided to take a risk and lean towards Florence, capturing her lips in a tender kiss.

Florence held her breath and released it very slowly, her mouth turning into a dazed smile.

Isabella wished she had a cloak of invisibility.

=

That night, an owlet Isabella had never seen before almost crashed through her bedroom window. She rushed to open it and picked up the little banded owl with a message tied to its leg. She put the message in her pocket and gave him a little cuddle before she extended her arm out of the window and, with a gentle movement, accompanied his take-off.

Frantically, she opened the tiny roll of parchment, grinning already before she even knew what it said. It wasn't signed, but she recognised the handwriting by now.

_There's a drumming noise inside my head_  
 _That starts when you're around_  
 _I swear that you could hear it_  
 _It makes such an almighty sound_

Isabella forgot how to breathe.

=

The school had arranged a trip to Hogsmeade the next day, to celebrate the spring solstice. Isabella hadn't been to Hogsmeade since joining the teachers' body. She had the perfect excuse: her students were too young to be allowed on these trips, so she didn't really feel any obligation to supervise the others. Participation was voluntary and, since she hadn't really befriended any of her colleagues, she'd not bothered so far. She would have probably ended up alone and bored to death. Now, however, knowing that Florence would be there, she wanted nothing else than to go along.

She joined the line-up of teachers, who were assembling in the entrance hall, opposite a crowd of students two or three hundred strong. It was still five minutes before they were due to set off, and she spent it watching the students mingling, mostly keeping to their own houses with a few mixed clumps sticking out.

Florence was easy to spot, partly because of her hair colour and partly because she was a head taller than any of the girls in her age group. Isabella felt a grin tug at the corner of her lips, and had to bite her bottom lip to avoid being too obvious. She stood out, herself, for different reasons: she was extremely small and extremely blonde. It took Florence less than an instant to notice her, and from that moment, their eyes stayed locked through the crowd as they both tried to suppress giddy smiles.

Someone on Isabella's right cleared their throat, and she realised she'd been daydreaming: she'd likely been spoken to, and completely ignored it. The voice belonged to Professor Sprout, probably the only inhabitant of Hogwarts castle who was the same height as Isa if not shorter. She was a chubby, cheerful woman with a mass of grey curls, and had obviously been Isa's teacher at one point.

“I said: coming with us today, dearie? That makes a change.”

Embarrassed and pressed to think of an excuse, Isabella said, “Yeah... yes. I wasn't feeling well. I thought a walk and some fresh air might do me good.”

“Ah... but it's tiring, it is, to make sure that the kiddies here don't get into any kind of trouble. Especially those who are old enough that they can order firewhiskey at the bar.”

Isabella hadn't really considered her teacherly duties when she'd decided to join the trip. From her own memories, once they got to Hogsmeade, the professors would just stalk off to do their own thing, which generally included going to the pub until it was time to get back. She was hoping she could just hide away with Florence somewhere, but hadn't really worked out the finer details of her plan.

They started their trek downhill, she and Sprout bringing up the rear as they were far too small to be seen if they'd been standing at the front of the pack. They made sure no one strayed off their path, and Isabella asked questions about what generally happened once everyone went their own separate ways. All the while, her eyes were fixed on the back of Florence's head – she was sauntering down the hill next to Grace, and her laugh was so loud Isa could hear it all the way from the back.

“Oh, Miss Summers, surely you remember. It's not been so long since you left,” Sprout explained. “You'll find all the younger kiddies going to the joke shop and the sweet shop, and the slightly older ones will probably hole up at Madam Puddifoot's for a tea and a snog.”

Isa rolled her eyes, slightly disgusted – until it occurred to her that she _had been_ one of those horny teenagers herself at one point. Her first ever date had been at Madam Puddifoot's, how cliché.

“Where do _we_ go then, I mean, the teachers?” she asked.

“Oh, you know. The Three Broomsticks. Or you're free to go wherever, really, if you need to buy any supplies or ingredients or magical objects. So long as you're back at the meeting point by 4.30, because we don't want to walk back in the dark, now do we?”

Isabella was slightly awed at Sprout's cheerful disposition. She'd been doing this for decades and she still seemed to enjoy it. She didn't talk about the students in a bitter way, and seemed quite contented with her job. Isa wondered if Professor Sprout would treat her just as nicely, had she known she was in a secret relationship with a student.

She lost Sprout as soon as they got to the village. The old professor went straight to the post office, and Isa was left with a very limited choice of places to go. She'd heard that there was another pub at the end of the road, but it was so dodgy no one ever went there. She knew Florence wouldn't be interested in going to Madam Puddifoot's and, as her sister was still in the younger age group, she'd probably end up chaperoning her to the joke shop. How could she let Florence know where she was? She couldn't think of anything, short of walking up the high street back and forth until they “accidentally” bumped into each other.

Eventually, she just decided it would be easier for Florence to find her, if she just stayed in one place the whole time. She knew Flo wanted to see her just as much as she wanted to see Flo: it was only a matter of time, and of getting rid of Grace, somehow.

Isa had stashed a notebook and charcoal in her extensible bag and, looking for somewhere that would inspire her to draw, she realised she could walk back to the cemetery, just a little ways off the main road, on the way to the Shrieking Shack.

She leaned back against the pedestal of a statue and set to work; as her hand moved rapidly on the paper, she wished she had some sort of Florence detection map. She'd have to study the proper spells to create some sort of charm by which they would always find each other.

Or maybe there was no need.

“Is that me?” Flo's voice asked from beside her. Isa had been sketching away and, subconsciously, she'd drawn something inspired by the message Florence had sent her last night. Indeed, it _was_ Florence, on her hands and knees and banging on the floor with one hand, but she hadn't really worked on the features of her face, preferring to hide them under stray locks of wavy, unruly hair.

“Maybe.” Isabella said, with a smirk. “Someone sent me a secret love message last night, and this is what came out.”

Florence kept up the game. “Well, whoever it was, they have good taste in women, that's for sure.”

“Oh, Flo, you're so cheesy!” Isa looked up at her with a sincere smile. “Thank you for finding me.”

Still looking at the paper from her vantage point, Florence commented, “You should show more of your work at Art club, you know. It looks really good.”

“Not all of it is appropriate for underage students,” Isa mumbled, clutching the sketchpad to her chest so Flo wouldn't look at it anymore.

“You mean it's like erotica?” Florence's voice shot up in excitement and Isabella had to glare at her to calm her down. Florence hung her head and begrudgingly sat down next to her.

“Some of it is. Not all of it. But that's not why I keep it to myself. I just don't want anyone telling me that I’m not talented enough and I should give up.”

Opening up was still so scary, even if she loved Florence.

“And has someone done that?” Florence was hugging her knees now, and she went really quiet and concerned. She knew nothing about rebuilding someone's self-esteem; she was hardly sure she had any self-esteem herself.

“Maybe,” Isabella repeated. “I've only shown my stuff to one person, and they shot it down, so I would say that my track record is 100% negative.”

“No one should ever be made to feel bad for their creative self-expression,” Florence said in disbelief. “You're talented, Isabella. And I know deep down you know it. And if you're scared, always remember that I sang for you when I didn't even know you, and then I sang a _love song_ to you when I thought I didn't stand a chance.”

Isa shuffled the folds of her gypsy skirt just enough that she could take Florence's hand underneath the fabric. Her drawing momentarily forgotten, she leaned her head back against the stone and exhaled slowly. She knew her walls were cracking: she was actually considering taking a leap of faith and showing Florence some of her stuff.

She wasn't able to offer, however, because Florence let go of her hand and got up abruptly, motioning for her to follow. Flo walked all the way to the end of the graveyard and climbed over the low cobblestoned wall that marked its edge. If they sat down at the right angle, no one walking on the street would have had a clue they were even there. It was a nice spot, as well: it faced a forest, but in the distance, beyond the trees, they could see this side of the Black Lake.

“Isa?” Florence called out, tentatively, suddenly sounding really scared. Isabella knew it was something important because Florence was unable to maintain eye contact. “I really want to sleep in your arms.”

Isabella looked at her with longing, and raised her fingers to stroke Florence's cheek; only when Flo said it did Isa realise that falling asleep holding each other was quite high on her wishlist, too. She rose to a kneeling position, and leaned in to kiss her gently. Florence claimed more and more, licking and biting Isa's lips, relishing this rare moment of privacy where it felt they were alone in the world.

“It can never happen while we're here,” Isabella said, trying to be rational. “But it's Easter break soon... maybe we can arrange something then? I don't know. I would love to, Flo, I really would.”

It was a delectable prison, this relationship with boundaries and secrets, but Isa was in too deep by now to get out of it unscathed.

“I'm going home for Easter break, but I could come to Aldeburgh one day? I'll just tell my mum I'm going somewhere else.”

Isa shook her head. “Flo, my parents know I'm the youngest teacher at this school. To take you home is pretty much admitting I'm dating a student. My parents may be open-minded, but they're not _that_ open-minded.”

“You come to mine then. You could pass for a student!” Florence suggested then, with a slight frown. Feeling helpless made her look even more childlike, it seemed.

“Grace will be there, Flo! She knows who I am.” Isa wished she didn't have to play devil's advocate, but it was of the utmost importance that they didn't do anything stupid to jeopardise this.

Florence hid her head in her hands and for a minute, it really seemed like she was going to pull her hair out in frustration. “Maybe I should just tell her. Grace would lie for us, I'm pretty sure.”

Isabella's look was enough to make her desist.

“Oh, this is awful,” Florence despaired.

“Come here, baby. We'll figure something out.” Isa slid down so she was lying on the grass, and Florence huddled next to her, with her head on Isabella's shoulder. Isa pulled her close and kissed her forehead; their fingers linked, resting on Isabella's ribcage, and the two of them stayed like that, Florence humming softly to Isa, until it was time to go home.


	11. April (1 of 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The relationship continues in secret, with a little help from one of Isabella's friends.

# April

They did figure it out, eventually. In quite a sordid fashion, for the next three weeks they took what they could get. Isa hated going back to the Room of Requirement after it had spun out of control on them that time, but there were few other places where she could spend time with Florence and be sure they weren't being watched, so she reluctantly made her appearance outside the majestic mahogany doors every Saturday morning, provided that Quidditch wasn't on.

That was their time to talk, make music, and sometimes lose control and have sex up against the cold stone walls. Florence had told Isabella about her family, how her parents had eventually split up because of magic, and she had a little brother who lived with her dad and she hardly ever saw. Isa had struggled, but she had told Flo some stories about her past relationship and exorcised some of her demons. It gave Florence a sort of retroactive jealousy, whereby she wanted to find Amy and hurt her for all the pain she'd caused Isabella, although ultimately, that same pain and life experience had turned her into the person Flo had fallen in love with.

There had been the recent addition of a sneaky goodnight kiss in the dark, every time Florence came out of her late night Astronomy lesson on a Tuesday: Isa would wait in the shadows at the bottom of the tower and their lips would meet softly, but no words were spoken. Other than that, their wish to spend a whole night in each other's arms hadn't found realisation yet.

Finally, the Easter holidays arrived. Florence and Grace were always going to go back home – the novelty was that Isabella also had a ticket for the Hogwarts Express, and was going to stay with her old housemate, Lucilla. She'd been one of Isa's closest friends back in school and, when Isa lived in London, through her failed relationship. Isa had never volunteered any information about being with Amy, but it was plain to Luce that something big had been happening, something that was leaving Isabella drained and depressed. They hadn't seen each other for nearly a year now, and all Lucilla knew was that Isabella now had a new girlfriend and had asked if she could come and stay over one night. There had been no mention of the fact said girlfriend was a student.

Isabella was pretty confident that this wouldn't be a problem, because Lucilla DeAngelis was no stranger to unusual relationships herself. Despite her posh-sounding name, she was the exact opposite of a Slytherin purist, which is why they had made friends in the first place. Lucilla had been scorned and shunned by her house when she had been dating a Muggle-born Gryffindor boy – the worst possible combination in the eyes of the snakes.

Isabella had admired her courage, and stuck with her through the relationship. Lucilla had been distraught when in 6th year, fearing for his safety, Anthony hadn't returned to school. Muggle-borns were at risk of being physically attacked every day, and all communications to and from the students were being monitored, so they were effectively cut off from each other. She had cried herself to sleep nearly every night as far as Isa could remember; the minute news had come of the Dark Lord's defeat, she'd bought a train ticket with her savings, packed up her owl and went out looking for him in Manchester.

The following year, they had been back at school together. Isa had never quite understood that kind of love until several years later. She hoped Luce would understand hers.

=

Lucilla and Anthony were married now, and lived in a one-bedroom flat in Clapham with two cats. It was big, for London; a large, sunny lounge with windows opening onto a main street. Isabella suspected it was more than double glazing keeping the noises out.

Anthony was away with work, and Isa was looking forward to a girly night in with the addition of Florence. She should be arriving any minute now; she knew she'd told her mum she'd be staying over at “a friend's”.

“Florence,” Lucilla said, from her corner of the couch, “what a pretty name.”

“What a pretty _everything_ ,” Isa replied immediately, with a huge grin. “Wait until you see her.”

“It's good to see you happy, Hell's Bells.” Luce commented using an old nickname. They'd never really been troublemakers as such, they just liked to think they were cooler than they were.

Isabella responded in kind.

“There's something I haven't told you, Lucifer.” She took a big gulp of her firewhiskey before finding the courage to add, “She's seventeen.”

“Oh? A student?” Luce narrowed her blue eyes, intrigued, but still not judging.

“Well, no, not technically my student. I only teach first and second years. But she's in a club I run. She doesn't _act_ seventeen, though. She's like...” Isa struggled to find a definition, “an old soul.”

“Stop making excuses, Isa. If you love her, she's good enough for me. And I'm happy to host your little tryst here, at Casa DeAngelis,” Lucilla finished with a wink.

“It's our first month anniversary tomorrow,” Isabella mumbled sheepishly, and for a minute, she felt like the baby of the couple.

=

Lucilla had made up the sofa-bed for Florence and Isabella after they'd had dinner and played cards like three old maidens. The streetlight was filtering in through the window, casting a vaguely orange glow on everything. They said goodnight to Luce, slipped under the covers in light t-shirts and shorts, and positioned themselves facing each other. Isabella had one arm around Flo's waist and one under her head, and Florence was caressing Isa's cheek, taking in her beautiful features even in the shadows.

Solemnly, she declared, “I already know before it even happens that waking up next to you will be the best feeling in the world.”

“You expect too much of me, silly.” Isabella shook her head. With every profession of love that Florence threw her way, Isa's attachment to her grew stronger, which would only make it harder when she inevitably left, like everyone before her. Most people had walked away from Isabella, so she'd stopped even giving people a chance to break the cycle. She remembered Carole, her French one night stand, remembered her sweet kisses in the garden: Isa had never allowed her to get any closer. Florence had got through to her with her sensitivity, her sweetness and her artistic mind, and Isa knew one day she would regret it.

Lowering her voice like it was a secret, Florence said earnestly, “I've never been so in love with anyone in my life.”

Isa wanted to protest, “Florence, you're _seventeen_!” but somehow, the words that came out of her mouth instead were, “I know. Me neither.”

Florence's eyes widened slightly at the admission, and she sighed contentedly, which made Isa close her eyes and kiss her passionately. When Flo's grip on reality started to slip, she decided to stop, stare gravely into Isa's eyes and murmur, “Be my date to the end of year ball?”

“Oh, _Flo_ ,” Isa brought a hand to her forehead, shaking her head in the dim light. “How is that appropriate? I'd get kicked out. And they might invalidate your NEWTs.”

“Then I'm not going.” Flo said stubbornly.

“Florence, you're not missing your own graduation ceremony.” Isabella had missed hers, but Flo didn't need to know that.

“You missed yours!” Flo gave her a stern look.

_How the fuck..._

“I was twelve, not _blind_.” She explained before Isabella could verbalise her question.

“Flo, there is no way in hell that we can go to _anything_ together as each other's date, at least not until you've graduated.”

“We'll see about that. Tomorrow is just for me and you, and you're going to be my date whether you like it or not.”

Isabella let herself smile and pulled Florence closer – any tighter and they would have just fused into one person. She thought back to Flo's lyrics and whispered against her forehead, “I'm not scared to jump and I'm not scared to fall...”

She wished that her love for Florence didn't have to be a secret. She wished that she could just walk down the school corridors holding hands with her, that she could kiss her by the lake, that she could be her date to the ball. But real life had different plans for them.

“If there was nowhere to land I wouldn't be scared at all”, she finished. There were plenty of places Isabella could land: unemployment; prison; both. Florence's youthful hope and unfaltering optimism maybe couldn't see that. In fact, Flo's response was just to mumble once again that she loved Isa, then she promptly fell asleep.

=

Florence slept peacefully that night, which was highly unusual for her. She had told Isabella about all the troubles that kept her awake at night: the nightmares, the paranoia, the terrors, and now she was afraid Isa wouldn't believe her. She used to be ok when she lived back home and shared a room with Grace, but since moving to school, Florence had woken up gasping and screaming so many times that special provisions had been granted to enchant her bed with a shielding and a silencing spell, so her three roommates wouldn't be bothered.

Last night, though, no ghosts, no blood and no torture had come to visit her in her sleep. Whenever she had turned around in bed and had sensed Isabella sleeping next to her, all she had needed to do was slip a hand underneath her t-shirt and feel the warmth and softness radiating from her skin to be soothed. She could get used to this, definitely.

She thought she would at least wake up before Isa did, but she opened her eyes to find grey ones staring back at her, a small smile playing on Isabella's lips. She looked different without her trademark black eyeliner: not better or worse, but younger and more innocent. Florence turned back towards her, prodding her knees open with her leg. They curled up facing each other, their limbs in a tangle, enjoying the silence and appreciating their luck for a moment.

“Didn't think you'd be up already,” Florence coughed up, still croaky from sleep.

“My teaching routine has me up way before you, you know,” Isa said with mock offence. “I teach more classes than you _take_. And one of your classes is at nighttime!”

Florence giggled, rolling onto her back. Her euphoric smile made Isabella's insides melt. It was quite a contagious feeling, this delirious happiness.

“I want to take you to see where I grew up today, is that ok?” Florence asked.

Isa nodded. She didn't really care where they went; it was Flo, not a specific place, that was starting to feel like home.

**=**

It was a sunny spring day. They'd had breakfast with Luce and said their goodbyes; Isabella was going to take a train back that afternoon, and Flo wanted to enjoy every single second of their day until she saw her off at the station. This was the only time they could act like a real couple until after she'd graduated, and she sure as hell was going to make the most of it.

They were strolling through the park she'd half grown up in, on their way to the Welch family house. No one around them was too bothered by two girls walking hand in hand, even when they stopped under a tree and Florence leaned down to kiss Isa again and again and again until they were both breathless and ready for more.

To calm down, Flo took Isabella's hand and started drawing circles on her palm with her thumb. “This is where I first showed signs of magic, you know.”

“Oh?” Isa commented, wanting to hear more.

“I was about six. I loved climbing up this tree. And one day, I was lying down on that branch,” she said pointing to one of the lowest and thickest branches on the mulberry tree, “I thought it would be nice if there were white, and pink, and red flowers all around the tree. And I was pointing my finger at where the flowers should be, and they grew out of the grass and bloomed right in front of me. If I waved my hand, more flowers would appear. And then my mum noticed and she said 'Florence, how are you doing that?' and her voice distracted me and all the flowers just disappeared. Poof.”

“Did your mum know at that point you could turn out magical?” Isabella asked. It had obviously never been an issue for her.

“Yeah, although I think she was hoping I _didn't_ ,” Florence shrugged, taking Isa's hand and starting to lead her out of the park. “She's too much of a realist to really understand. I think that's what eventually drew my parents apart, you know. The fact she always felt like an outsider. There was nothing she could do about it; it's not like she could _become_ magical.”

Isabella gave her hand a little squeeze. “My first sign of magic, aged five,” she changed the subject, “was turning my entire wardrobe into copies of this one dress that I liked. I wanted to wear it every day. It was like... blue velvet with silver accents and I thought it looked like the night sky.”

“Well, someone's clearly always had a knack for transfiguration.” Florence pointed out, almost with pride.

“One day, my mum told me that I couldn't wear it because it had to get washed, I got angry, and _that_ happened, and then she was like, 'Izzy, I get it, turn them back now!' and I just... couldn't! I didn't even know how I'd done it in the first place!”

Florence laughed. “Grace lit candles. She nearly set fire to our living room once.”

“ _What_??”

“There were two candles on the mantelpiece. No one quite realised they had lit themselves. She went over to the fireplace and was trying to grab one of the candlesticks, but she was too short and it kind of fell off and onto the carpet. My dad was in the room so he just stomped on it before it was too late. She lit candles in church too once. A whole row. After that, we never had candles in the house again until she started school and learnt to control it!”

They had arrived in front of a red brick house, and Florence paused to retrieve her keys from her overnight bag. “Mum and Grace are out,” she explained, “so you can come inside and see my room.”

Isabella followed her up the driveway and into the house, where Florence took her straight to the living room, just on their left.

“This is where I sleep now,” she explained. “I shared a room with Grace upstairs, but then when I got to like, 13, 14, I wanted my own space and my mum said this could be it.”

There was a mattress on the floor instead of a bed, and stuff everywhere. Every inch of every surface was covered in clothes, records, shoes and other knick-knacks; the walls were covered in posters, tickets and paintings; the only part of the room that wasn't covered in something was the bay window.

“Have a look around, I'll get us some water,” Florence said, excitedly.

Isa was mostly drawn to the sketches. A page had been ripped out of Florence's journal – the one that portrayed Isabella at her piano – and now peeked cheekily in between a ticket stub from the National Gallery and a poster of some Muggle band Isa had never heard of in her life. She looked at Flo's racks of clothing, as well, her wardrobes so full they didn't even close. Isa regretted not knowing more about fashion – it was a perk of people who'd grown in Muggle or half-Muggle families. She was supposed to conform to current fashions when she wasn't on magical grounds, but she'd been on the receiving end of some funny looks when she'd tied a scarf around her head, or worn a tie-dyed playsuit.

“Do you want to try some of these on?” Flo said, handing her a huge glass of water and setting another on her desk.

Isa took a gulp and commented, “I'm like, eight inches shorter than you?”

“Doesn't matter,” Florence took Isa's glass away and put it down, twirling to her closet like a little girl. “These will fit you.”

She chucked a pair of high-waisted denim shorts in her direction.

“You have amazing legs, Isa, you gotta show 'em off!” she giggled.

Isa stepped out of her long, black skirt and with a bit of pulling, managed to fit into Florence's shorts, but she shot her a glare when she couldn't do up the button.

“I'm just _saying_ ,” Florence laughed, “things _like that_ are what you should wear. Not those exact ones. Now try this on.”

The next item in Flo's personal fashion show was a blue nautical dress; Isa looked skeptical, even _she_ recognised that it wasn't current at all.

“Blue will go nicely with your hair and your eyes,” Flo declared. “Even five-year-old you knew that.”

As she was taking off her lacy top, Isa protested, “I wasn't blonde as a ch-”, but Florence cut her off with a kiss, pulling the garment out of her hands with a grin.

“On second thought, why don't you just stay like this for a while,” she murmured tracing Isa's left collarbone with her index finger. “You're gorgeous.”

Funny how even a movement that simple took Isa's breath away. Feeling slightly self-conscious, she kept her eyes trained on Flo's hand as she asked, “Was this just a trick to get me undressed?”

“Honest, it wasn't,” Florence answered, her hand sliding around Isa's back to undo her bra. “It's just, when I see you like this, I just can't resist you.”

It was graceful, the way she peeled off Isa's bra; it almost felt like a caress until her hands clasped around both of Isa's wrists and she advanced, cornering her with her back against the wall and her arms pinned up above her head. It didn't last for long, though, as Florence wanted to let her hands roam over Isabella's skin. Her own hands freed, Isa tangled her fingers up in Flo's hair, which was getting longer – and browner – by the day, keeping her close as Flo's tongue played with her nipples, hoping her legs didn't give way.

When Florence noticed Isa was getting uncomfortable, she whispered sweetly, “Get on the bed, _now_.”


	12. April (2 of 3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like for March part 2, this chapter is explicit, but I didn't want to mark the whole story as explicit because it's a bit dismissive towards all the chapters that are plot-heavy. Do skip the first half of this part, though, if sexual situations bother you (knowing my readers, it's quite the opposite, but you never know). 
> 
> Hope you enjoy this chapter. It is quite an important one. Special thanks go to Lauren. She literally got me out of my writer's block by suggesting the situation at the end of this part and saying, "sometimes the easiest solution is the most believable one". Thank you xx

Isabella stumbled forward like she was drunk, and in a way, she supposed that she was. The mattress was just resting on the floor, so she crawled on on all fours, and turned around just in time for Florence to climb on top of her.

Isa was still wearing the denim shorts that wouldn't button up, and Flo only had to grab the waistband, and her knickers with it, to pull them off, leaving Isabella completely naked on her bed.

“Florence, what are you-” Isa tried to protest, but Flo had completely lost control and wasn't really capable of rational thought as she tried to reach as many corners of Isa's body as she could, all at the same time. Her mouth trailing kisses down Isa's neck; her hand on her breast while the other sustained her entire weight; her knee pushing between Isa's legs. The Room of Requirement wasn't always forthcoming with beds; clearly Florence wasn't one to miss an opportunity.

As her kisses continued their path further down her body, Isabella became alarmed. This wasn't something they'd done before, and she didn't want Florence to feel like she had to. Flo's head had just slipped outside of Isa's reach, her fingers had grabbed empty air; Isa managed to prop herself up just enough to say, “Hey, hey. You don't have to do this.”

“I want to.” Florence replied, replaying the conversation they'd had on their first time. She wanted to know what Isabella tasted like. She had tasted her off her fingers, but now she wanted to make her come with her tongue. Isa had done it to her; it was only fair.

Sliding off the mattress completely, she let the tip of her tongue graze Isabella's clit before Isa tried to stop her again. She could hear the objections die in Isabella's throat the minute she touched her, and it was only a matter of seconds before Isa was no longer able to push herself up on her elbows and had to give in to the sensations.

Florence started off slow, not having a clue what to do; when Isa had gone down on her, she'd been too into it to work out the mechanics. But she could gauge what Isa wanted easily, from her reactions – like the way she whimpered when Flo flicked her tongue in a particular direction; like the way whenever she slid down to tease her opening, she could feel her and _see_ her getting visibly wetter. Isabella wrapped her legs around Florence's head, her heels digging into her back as Flo licked and sucked and she progressively forgot how to breathe.

When she remembered to open her eyes, she could sometimes see Florence peeking up from under her fringe, making sure that she was doing it just right. She hoped that the fact she couldn't keep her eyes open for more than a couple of seconds at a time was an indication of the answer.

Flo had picked up her pace now, her tongue drawing rapid circles around Isabella's clit; whenever Isa moaned, Florence would mirror the sound in delight, and even though Isabella was nowhere near touching her, Flo felt that she could have come just from the sheer sensuality of the situation.

It wasn't until she teased Isa with the tip of her finger that moans turned into screams and Isa could feel her climax approach from a mile away. She gave in gratefully, shouting “YES!” as she released, Florence still lapping idly between her legs, tasting her orgasm and failing to come up with a comparison of what her sweet, tangy juices reminded her of.

Isa had come so hard that she was still shuddering on the bed, her legs shaking uncontrollably on Florence's shoulders. Flo gently unfolded them, and climbed up next to her, wiping her mouth before she kissed her.

“You're amazing,” Isa brought her hand up to pull Florence closer to her. The ends of her wavy hair tickled Isabella's breasts, and Flo positioned herself with her face buried in Isa's neck, kissing right on her pulse and then nibbling.

“No,” Florence corrected her, “ _you're_ amazing. And I can't wait to do that again.”

“ _Again_?” Isa looked almost panicked. Her hand had just untucked Florence's shirt out of her shorts, and was making its way towards her bra. “I don't think so. It's my turn now.”

Flo grabbed Isabella's hand and stopped it, repositioning it around her waist.

“We have to go now, Isa. You're gonna miss your train.”

“But...” Isa tried to protest – then remembered she was completely naked on a mattress on the floor and in all honesty, she didn't really feel at her most assertive.

“No buts,” Florence said, running her finger along Isa's bottom lip. “You can't miss your train. You'll get your turn when I come up to Hogwarts tomorrow. And any time you want after that.”

She winked, got up, and started looking for Isabella's clothes around the room.

=

When Florence got home that evening, she knew instantly that something was wrong. The house was eerily silent, and when she walked in and shouted her hellos, she didn't hear Grace greet her back, just her mum's voice coming from the kitchen, saying “In here, Florence.”

She crossed the threshold to find her mother sat at the kitchen table: the last time she'd seen her look so serious and clearly bracing herself for an “important talk” was when she'd told her and Grace that she'd be divorcing their father.

Florence's face flushed immediately. This could only mean one thing, and it wasn't going to be good.

“Sit down, Florence,” Evelyn Welch said. It was clearly an order, not to be argued with, and Florence complied. “Where were you this morning?”

She did make one last attempt at keeping up the lie she'd told. After all, her mother could be bluffing. “I was with Livi.”

“Don't lie to me, Florence. I saw you, earlier today. You were with a _blonde_ girl. So, unless Livi has changed hair _and_ skin colour, it wasn't her that you were out with.”

“Fine!” Flo protested, shifting slightly in her seat. She was starting to feel angry, she hadn't really done anything wrong, so why was she being made to feel like she had?

“Fine,” she repeated, trying to stay calm. “I have a girlfriend, Mum. We've been dating for a month.”

“And you thought it was appropriate to bring her _here_?”

Florence hadn't realised that was where her mum had seen her. Stupidly, her first thought had been the park, out in the open. She was so busy kissing Isabella and telling her stories that her entire family could have been standing two steps away, waving their arms about, and she wouldn't have noticed any of it. But if she'd been seen through the windows, why hadn't her mum come in? And what exactly had she seen?

“Mum, I don't see what your problem is! If it was a boy I'd taken home, you wouldn't be saying this!”

“I'm not having you bring _anyone_ under my roof for sex!”

Ok, so she had seen _everything_. And still, she'd refrained from coming in and interrupting them. Florence felt extremely grateful and extremely frustrated at the same time that some form of weird politeness had stopped her mother from walking in on them. She rolled her eyes, remembering how Evelyn hadn't been that fussed when, two years ago, her boyfriend at the time had visited the Welches once during Christmas break and stayed the night.

“You met Matthew, Mum, and you didn't seem to have a problem with that!”

That was a pretty big admission, to confess that she and Matthew had been having sex; but she was hoping to prove the point that the only thing her mum had an issue with was Isa's gender. Maybe she could still make her see sense.

“That might be because I didn't see you take his clothes off through an open window! Who even is this girl, Florence?”

“Her name's Isabella.” Flo mumbled, looking down in a sulk.

“Is she someone from your school?” Evelyn enquired.

“Yeah, she's... new.” Florence responded, struggling for a possible explanation why in seven years of school she had never needed to mention this person before.

“I really, really don't want to think what could have happened if any of the neighbours had seen you! It's bad enough having to lie to them about you and Grace being 'at boarding school in Scotland'! I didn't ask for this – I'm doing the best I can!”

It was rare for Florence to get angry, but Evelyn was being too selfish for her to just shut up and take it. “What do the neighbours care where I am and why, Mum?? You have to stop worrying what other people think!! I'm happy with Isa. Why isn't that enough for you?”

“Because, Florence, you girls are too young to really know what you're doing. You think you're happy _now_ but when everyone turns their back on you, on _us_ , on our family, you're going to be around a lot of hate, and I don't want that for you. And Isabella too. You just don't consider these things because you're still kids.”

All that really registered of this rant in Florence's mind was the comment about them being too young to know what they wanted. Flo had had a few boyfriends – just because her mum didn't know about it, it didn't mean that she wasn't clever enough to judge her own feelings. And the comment about Isa...

“I know _exactly_ what I'm doing, thank you very much. And, Isa's older than me, it's not just some stupid childish whim!”

The minute the words slipped out, she realised she shouldn’t have said that. Before she even had time to formulate a defence, Evelyn asked, “Older? How much older?”

Florence was in her last year – they were the oldest students in the whole school. _You idiot. Why the fuck did you say that?_ Her silence gave away that this was definitely no ordinary relationship.

“FLORENCE LEONTINE MARY WELCH. Are you sleeping with one of your _teachers_?”

Evelyn raised her voice, and Flo started feeling really scared. Scared of what might happen to Isa, of all things, not scared for herself. She could take anything her mum threw her way. _Just not Isa please, please not Isa, don't make Isa lose her job because of this. Oh, fuck._

“I did not raise you to be a troublemaker, Florence!! What the hell were you thinking?? Grace has more sense than you, and she's _fourteen_!”

Florence covered her face with one hand, and started crying.

“I love her, Mum,” she pleaded. “It's as simple as that. And she loves me.”

“You know nothing of love, Florence. You're too young. Whatever this girl's giving you, is not love, and she should be ashamed of herself. You don't want to hear this, honey, but this is not going to be as serious to her as it is to you.”

“What do _you_ know, Mum? You've never met her! She's just a girl. She has feelings, like I have! And fears! She makes me feel more understood than anyone has in my entire life.”

“She's brainwashed you.” Evelyn said, her lips pursed in disappointment.

“She hasn't!” Flo screamed, slamming her hand on the kitchen table. “She _hasn't_! I came onto _her_. I fell in love with _her_. I'm lucky she even noticed me at all. Why won't you believe that?”

Evelyn cut the conversation short. “Grace!” She called. “Come downstairs! I need you to make that bloody Floo Network work for me! I need to call your school.”

Florence wasn't even attempting to wipe her tears away anymore. She just sat limply in her chair, repeating between sobs “No, Mum, no, please... I need her, Mum, please... please don't do anything to harm her...”

“I don't care, Florence. I'm pulling you out of school.”


	13. April (3 of 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Florence's mum finds out she's dating Isa and she's not happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is only a short chapter compared to the last few I posted. I was starting work later today so I thought I'd post in the morning and hopefully comments will get me through my day, sigh. I hope you all forgive me for what I called the owl :P I honestly don't mean for it to be offensive, promise. 
> 
> My posting has nearly caught up to my writing so I hope this explains why I'm only putting up one chapter a week recently. I have until June part 2 ready to post but I am planning two or three more parts after that to wrap everything up.
> 
> Enjoy and have a lovely Sunday everyone. xx

So it had finally happened. Isabella was going to lose her job because of her – just like she'd said all those months ago. It felt like ages had passed now since Isa's attempts at resisting their mutual attraction. Maybe she should have stuck with her first instinct: to run away from Florence, because it couldn't possibly end in anything but disaster.

Now, Evelyn was talking to Headmistress McGonagall through the fireplace in the living room, Grace had been banished to her room upstairs, and Florence still hadn't moved from the chair in the kitchen: too tired to move or speak, she was merely existing.

She'd heard bits of the conversation; if nothing else, McGonagall confirmed herself as her favourite teacher (before the arrival of Isa, obviously) when she said “Mrs Welch, Florence is legal in our world, and in a few months she will be in yours, too. It is not the school's duty to monitor her personal relationships.”

Her mum, however, hadn't let go at all.

“In _my_ world, this would be a scandal! The teacher would be sacked – I should know – I'm a professor!”

“I will see to it that Miss Summers is spoken to and that her side of the story is heard. As far as I am concerned, I am dealing with two consenting adults.”

Florence made a mental note that when she returned to school to take her exams – that, at least, Evelyn couldn't forbid – she was going to give the headmistress a massive hug. Or, if that made her uncomfortable, a thank you letter.

A letter!

Every other evening at 7 on the dot, their family owl, Stuart, would come and collect any outgoing post they might have; he would travel from Hogwarts to London one day, and from London to Hogwarts the next, stopping at her dad's on the way, so the whole of the Welch family could keep in touch with each other. A quick look at her watch told Florence it was 6:52. She could make the collection if she hurried and didn't write much. Opening all the kitchen draws until she found a piece of paper and a pen, she scribbled:

_Isa_

_mum found out about us. She's not letting me come back to school. I am so sorry. I want to be back at Hogwarts with you but I can't until exams. I'm praying nothing happens to you, I could never forgive myself if you lost your job because of me. Please don't forget me Isa. I love you._

_Flo x x_

She tried to make as little noise as possible when she snuck out of the kitchen.

She heard her mum excuse herself from her Floo call and shout out, “Florence, come here immediately!”

Florence ignored her.

They weren't one of those families who had physical fights and they had never been. All it took was for Evelyn to grab her arm and yank it back, for Florence to stop in her tracks and crumble like the obedient girl she'd been all her life.

Her back slid down the wall as Evelyn pried her fingers open and snatched the note from it. The tears came back with violence; sobs shook her as she pointedly looked away from her mother taking away the last bit of hope she'd had.

She saw Stuart fly in and perch himself on their outside fence just as Evelyn was ripping the last bits of paper to shreds.

_=_

The first day of lessons was a Thursday. Isabella looked for Florence at breakfast time, at the far end of the Hufflepuff table, but when she didn't see her there, she could feel her heart sink with dread. Her stomach closed up, and she couldn't finish what was on her plate. Her brain was churning, figuring out how she could go and check if Florence was in the infirmary, when it was the opposite way to the classroom she needed to be in in less than fifteen minutes.

A voice from behind her startled her and she dropped her fork with a clang. “Miss Summers, a word in my office please?”

The feeling of dread spread to Isabella's face and limbs. Colour drained from her lips, as she feebly tried to protest, “Lessons start in ten minutes, Headmistress...”

“This is why,” McGonagall said, pulling out a necklace that her high collar was concealing, “we have time-turners. When we get to my office, we'll give this just one little flick, and it'll give us an hour in which we can talk. Also, Miss Summers, I trust you won't reveal to anyone I own this, as it's the very last one in existence.”

Isabella gulped and found she could barely control her movements enough to nod. Her throat dried up, and she braced herself for her fate.

=

Sitting across the desk from the Headmistress as a teacher was no less terrifying than doing it as a student. It was _more_ terrifying, in fact, but McGonagall, although serious, didn't look angry.

“Florence Welch's mother has retired her from school,” she sighed, “on the grounds of her being in a _relationship_ with you.”

Isabella squirmed in her seat. She opened her mouth, but no words came out.

“Think long and hard before you deny it, Miss Summers.” McGonagall interrupted. “I thought I made it clear to you that I, _personally_ , didn't have a problem with it.”

Isa's mouth stayed open, but for different reasons now. She _knew_?

“Miss Summers.” The headmistress raised an eyebrow and squinted at her. “You may have noticed, I wasn't born yesterday.”

Isabella wasn't sure exactly how old McGonagall was, but she had to be pushing seventy at the very least, and discussing her love life with someone who could have been her grandmother made her very, very uncomfortable.

“How did she find out?” She managed to strangle out the question, with some effort.

“She didn't say. But Miss Welch is going to study for her NEWTs at home, it seems.”

Isabella couldn't contain herself any longer. Her hand flew to her mouth and she burst into tears, there and then, right in front of her boss of seven months; surely the worst part wasn't over yet, surely news of her sacking would follow imminently.

“This is all my fault,” Isabella sobbed. “I'm so sorry. I'll be out of your hair before the day is done. I hope this doesn't bring the school into disrepute.”

“Miss Summers!” McGonagall raised her voice. “I implied no such thing. You will maintain your teaching position, and it has been agreed, with the younger Miss Welch as well, that anyone who inquires is to be told that Florence has a Muggle illness, for which she is being treated in a Muggle hospital.”

“But _why_?” Isa wailed.

The Headmistress seemed to quieten down then. “Isabella,” she said, breaking etiquette. “Before you came here, Miss Welch was... troubled. Within two months of you taking over the club, she was performing at NEWT standard in her subjects. Granted, it's only two, but when I asked her why, she said that she wanted to be taken _seriously_. And I suspect she wanted you to notice her.”

Isa knew why Florence wanted to be noticed, but she kept her mouth shut. Hot tears stung her face at the thought that Flo had risked everything for her, but she still hadn't been able to protect her.

Now, they were going to be apart, and Florence was going to forget her. Maybe be persuaded it hadn't been real love in the first place. She surprised herself with these catastrophic thoughts, but almost chuckled internally when she noticed that Flo's propensity for doom and gloom seemed to have rubbed off on her.

“I'm sorry, Isabella.” McGonagall's voice brought her back from her reverie. “Do you need some water?”

Isa nodded; anything to create a distraction from the surreality of this situation. Accepting the glass gratefully, she asked, “Why are you being so kind about all this, Professor?”

McGonagall looked almost heartbroken as she said, “I may be old and bitter, but I'm not going to stand in the way of someone's first love.”


	14. May (1 of 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After being forcibly separated, Isabella and Florence need to find a way to be together again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I just say, I did a vote before posting this on whether people wanted a new Hogwarts chapter or a new original oneshot... last time I did this, everyone voted the oneshot and I thought people just weren't connecting with the Hogwarts story and it made me sad.
> 
> This time, the results were the complete opposite, and out of 10+ people who gave an opinion, only one said oneshot, and it genuinely made me really happy :) I'm glad you have grown to love these versions of Florence and Isa and you're invested in their happiness <3
> 
> Thank you <3

# May

Isabella's new mission was to single out Grace Welch, the only person besides her and McGonagall who knew the truth, and her only way through to Florence.

She had tried to write to Florence straight away, as soon as she'd learnt of what happened. Even if she didn't know her exact address in London, she could trust the Welch family owl to find her. He was still being kept at school because Grace might have needed to send post, so Isabella went up to the Owlery and looked around until she recognised him; she tied a message to his leg and spoke to him for a couple of minutes, whispering to him that _he needed to find Florence, she was going insane without her, and she needed to know she was ok_. She hoped no one would come into the tower just then or they would have thought she'd gone batty.

The next day, the owlet had come back and pecked at her bedroom window late at night, exhausted and with the message still tied to its leg. She had removed it quickly, and binned it without even looking at it again. She felt so guilty towards the small bird, she actually walked back to the Owlery with him perched on her arm, stopping to look for mice along the way that she could feed him. By that point, she was too tired to even cry about what happened.

From that moment and for her own good, she forced herself to go through her routine every day and count down the days until Florence would be back to take her NEWTs. Lessons five days a week, Art club on a Friday, weekends to herself: she was steering clear of the Room of Requirement, though. She didn't need the memories.

She felt a little emptier without her piano room, and there was a hollow in her chest right where Florence's voice had resonated so many times. She wished their sessions had been recorded, so she could listen to Florence sing and pretend they were together. She clutched her pillow at night and imagined it was still Flo's slight body she was holding, and whispered to the empty room like Florence was really there to listen. No one needed to know.

She did, however, have a magical photo that Lucilla had taken of them the night they'd stayed at hers. It started off with them giggling, then something had possessed Isabella to turn around and bite Florence's cheek, hard. The image shifted back and forth – Muggles would call it a hologram - and Isa could never look at it for too long, because she felt tears stinging her eyes after the first couple of seconds. But she would have probably gone mental without that picture, so she tried to see the silver lining.

She just really, really needed to speak to Grace.

=

For a third year, Florence's sister was ridiculously busy, and Isabella didn't know how to catch her attention since Grace wasn't one of her students. The Great Hall was crowded with hundreds of people every day at breakfast, lunch and dinner, but they stuck to their own groups and it would just have seemed very out of place. The same way it would have seemed out of place to stop her if they passed in a corridor, especially because Grace seemed to be quite the social butterfly and was never, _ever_ on her own.

She had almost resigned herself to go watch Quidditch practice or a match, when it was Grace who approached her, or rather, vigorously knocked on her window one afternoon, hovering on her broomstick, hair held back by a giant pair of goggles.

“I need to talk to you,” she said, breathlessly, when Isa had nearly broken her neck running to open the window. “Can you meet me in the Transfiguration classroom after practice?”

Isabella barely had the time to nod that Grace took off again, back towards the Quidditch pitch. Isa's room was nowhere near the stadium: Grace had taken one hell of a detour. Taking risks and breaking rules seemed to be somewhat of a Welch family trait.

=

Half an hour later, Isabella sat at one of the desks in the Transfiguration classroom, nervously tangling and untangling her fingers in front of her. She didn't want to sit at the teacher's desk – she felt like anything but an authority figure. Her fate was in the hands of a 13-year-old girl. What if it was bad news? What if Grace just wanted to see her to insult her for causing tensions in their family?

She realised she was holding her breath when the door opened. Almost as if she'd thought for a minute that Florence would materialise instead of Grace. But Flo wasn't there; Isa adjusted her eyes to Grace's height, taking in her light floral dress, blonde hair still wet from a shower and slicked back on her head. She was smiling brightly, and came to sit right next to her, with a friendly look on her face. It was like she was fearless, this child who, all things considered, was a full 10 years younger than her.

“I've come to talk to you because I know you miss her,” was her opening line. No need to say who she was referring to. “My mum is checking all her post so she can't write to you or write to _me_ to say things to you. I'm hardly even speaking to her at the moment.”

Isabella nodded gravely, not trusting herself to speak just yet. For the embarrassment she felt, she might as well have been naked. She felt terribly vulnerable, like she was under trial.

“Mum found out about you guys because she saw you through a window. And I don't know what she has a problem with, if it's that you're a girl or if it's that you're a teacher, but you know she tried to feed me that 'Flo's ill' line, too? Like I wasn't upstairs while they were screaming their lungs out at each other...”

Isa felt the tears come up again. She didn't want to be the cause of such pain for Florence. They'd been living in a happy little bubble in the castle, but as soon as they had gone back into real life, it had smacked them in the face. Florence seemed feisty, and so sure of herself, but would she still be those things when faced with reality, or would reality break her?

“I'm really sorry, Grace. I never meant to hurt her. Or get her in trouble. I'm the one that should be in trouble.”

“She'll live, Miss. She's got thick skin.”

Isabella found it slightly alienating that this kid was still deferring to her, calling her “Miss”, but at the same time held so much power over her right now. She was her only way of contacting Florence, and she had to, _had_ to, find a way to get through to her.

“You can call me Isabella, when no one's around, kid.” She said, as a way to buy herself some time. She _needed_ Grace to at least send Flo a code message of some kind.

“Well, Isabella,” said Grace gently, “she loves you. She waited for you. The least you can do is wait for her.”

“How do you even... _know_ all this?” Isa asked, befuddled.

Grace looked very resolute. Her eyes were open and encouraging, and painfully reminiscent of Flo's. “Because she said as much. When she was fighting with Mum, she said she loved you, and you loved her, and if she says that, I believe it.”

That wasn't what Isa was referring to. “But... the waiting part...”

“Do you really think I didn't know something was going on? Miss,” Grace said, slipping into the honorific again, “I spend a lot of time with my sister. When we came back from Christmas break, she was changed. She was mopey and teary all the time. I asked what happened and she said she had feelings for someone she couldn't have. Wasn't hard to put two and two together, really, when you consider the average age of our teachers is a hundred and two.”

In spite of herself, Isabella chuckled.

“I could tell when you got together, as well. Flo didn't need to say anything. She was smiling all the time, and yeah she's pretty smiley, normally, but I don't know... it looked like she was keeping a happy secret.”

A happy secret. Something constricted Isa's chest, and she didn't know if she wanted to laugh or go on crying. She'd never quite understood what _bittersweet_ meant, until now.

“I do love her.” She confirmed. “And I would give anything, literally _anything_ , just to let her know that I'm not going to stop now just because we're apart. Is she being kept under lock or something? Can't she write when your mum's not there?”

“When my mum's not there, Flo's sent to our uncle. She can't go to our dad's, because obviously, he'd let her do what she wants. She's just studying for her NEWTs, watching telly, you know. She's not being _tortured_ or anything. But my mum doesn't let her leave the house even just to buy milk, she's afraid she'll do a runner.”

“Your uncle, did you say?” _Oh please make it the uncle that I think it is._

“Yeah, he lives in Suffolk. Mum drives Flo there when she's lecturing, and goes to pick her up. And obviously with him being a Muggle, there's nothing magical in the house, otherwise I'd at least talk to her through Floo. And it's not on our owl's route to check for post there. She's going there this weekend, when Mum's abroad for work, so maybe we could try using regular post and see if Flo gets it?”

_No need._ “Thank you, Grace. That... actually really helped. We should definitely try that, yes.”

The minute she got out of the classroom, she wrote to her parents that she'd be joining them in Aldeburgh that weekend.

=

Officially, she was just visiting her parents, as she hadn't seen them since Christmas. She remembered how the snow had coated the streets then; now, there was a cold sun and the sea made the air crispy – Isa could smell the saltiness from the front door. She needed to work out what she'd do once she got to Florence's uncle's house. Sure, if it was just one Muggle in her way there were plenty of spells she could resort to, and no one would ever know. But what if it turned out it was a family of five? She really didn't have enough to go by, and it almost felt like a chore to sit through a late lunch with her mum and dad. They genuinely thought Isabella was there to spend the weekend with them, but she'd have to make her excuses pretty soon and she still hadn't decided how.

She obviously avoided telling them how she'd nearly lost her job; had her boss been any less enlightened she'd be living on the streets now. There were only a handful of weeks until the end of term and her students were preparing for exams, plus she'd been asked to assist McGonagall with OWL gradings for the fifth-years. It seemed like idle chit-chat while her mum was washing the dishes, she was drying them, and her dad was making tea for everyone, but when they'd asked Isabella if there was any gossip, she'd found it odd; she couldn't really think of anything besides the usual younger kids getting spells wrong and changing each other's appearance, explosions in the Potions dungeon and the Arithmancy NEWT class reaching a record breaking nine students that year.

It surprised her, and made her skin crawl, when her mum said “There's a student from Hogwarts in town, how weird, this is such a small place, what are the odds? And rumour has it that she's confined here because she was having a fling with one of her teachers.”

Isabella was lucky she didn't blush easily, but her mouth went dry, and she was rendered temporarily speechless. As she twisted and turned her dishcloth in her hands, she made the bold decision to say, “I know, Mum.”

A beat. “It's me.”

She couldn't bring herself to look at either of her parents after saying it; she thought she would go deaf from the awkward silence that had ensued.

Liz Summers closed the taps and looked concerned as she repeated, “It's you?”

_Come on Isa, you're a big girl now, no tears._ “I'd been seeing her for about a month. Her mum found out and pulled her out of school.” Her voice didn't even sound like it belonged to her; it was distant, like all of this had happened to someone else.

Her hands still in the sink, Liz asked, “Is she... underage?”

Isabella shook her head. Her dad hadn't said anything in all this, but both her parents were clever enough to do the math that if Florence was not underage, then she was not, technically, one of Isa's students.

“Well, that's just awful.”

These short, sharp comments were driving Isabella crazy. She could feel her heartbeat in every part of her body and she felt light-headed, like she could pass out.

“It's actually not...” Isa started, almost asking a question. “She's lovely. She's so deep, and fascinating, it's like she's got a whole universe inside of her. She's patient with me. She knew I was falling for her but she didn't rush me. She knew I was scared. And it just makes me so happy to be with her. Like I can be myself.”

Liz smiled, and dried her hands on another tea towel. “I meant it's awful that she's been pulled out of school, duckie.”

She put her arms around Isabella, who couldn't move for the shock. This was too easy. She'd had nothing but support: from McGonagall, from her mum... surely something was meant to go wrong now. Things couldn't be so smooth. She looked at her dad.

“Izzy, you deserve someone who loves you.” He said. “You were in a state when Amy left.”

She'd never even mentioned to either of her parents that she and Amy were a couple.

Her legs threatened to give way, and Isa felt like she wanted to cry, but incredulous laughter was all she could manage at that moment. Her dad offered her a mug of milk tea and she took it with gratitude, thinking she really did have the most wonderful family.

Only one piece was missing.

=

She stood outside the brown brick house, thinking she was probably looking very conspicuous leaning on the fence across the road - the fence in front of which they'd kissed for the very first time - and trying to spy any movement coming from inside. There were three windows facing her: one downstairs and two upstairs. She could float a message to any of them discreetly, but what if it got intercepted? Eventually, she decided to do things the non-magical way. She marched up to the front door and rang the bell.

She could hear shuffling inside, and steps. She wished she could just crouch in a corner and Stun whoever opened the door, unless it was Florence, but the house was on the main street and anyone could have seen her. When she found herself facing a tall, pale man, she adopted the most innocent look she could muster and said, “Hi, I'm collecting used books and clothes on behalf of, uhm... St Mungo's Charity shop?”

She could count on the man not having any idea who she was. She'd lived in Aldeburgh maybe only a couple of years before getting her Hogwarts acceptance letter, and only came back for two months each summer, until she'd moved to London. Plus, her hair had been brown then. If she'd been a Metamorph she could have just changed her appearance, and that would have made her impossible to identify, but she wasn't, and she just had to rely on her own devices.

“I'd be terribly grateful if I could have a glass of water as well, if you don't mind... I've been going back and forth all day,” she lied.

The door swung open and she took two steps into the corridor, turning around to close it for him. Her hand clutched around the wand in her pocket as she rapidly spun and hissed _Stupefy!_ at him. He was immediately knocked unconscious, and Isabella softened his fall so he wasn't hurt. When she set about exploring the house, she found no one downstairs. The living room was empty, as was the kitchen. She couldn't call out for Florence in case there was anyone else around, but at this point it didn't seem likely; still, she tried to make as little noise as possible as she went up the steps to the first floor.

She saw Florence immediately, through the open door of what was probably a guest bedroom. She was sat at a desk, right under a window over the back garden of the house; she had her back to Isa, so all she could see were her messy waves of hair, now a more somber reddish-brown reaching way past her shoulders.

“Who was it??” Florence shouted without turning around.

Isabella grinned as she stopped in the doorframe and answered, “It's only me.”

Florence flung herself out of her chair, hitting her legs on the underside of the desk and swearing loudly. Isa laughed as she closed the distance between them, opening her arms to welcome Flo back where she belonged.

They held onto each other for a long time; Florence was shaking in Isabella's arms with a mixture of laughter and tears while Isa stroked her silky hair, and occasionally brushed her cheek with the inside of her thumb.

“How did you find me... how did you find me?” Flo asked with as much voice as she could muster.

Isabella did pause to kiss her then, moving her hands around Flo's waist and yanking possessively. Florence was still smiling incredulously against her kisses, but soon a hunger for more took over her, too: she hadn't done this in a month, which in a two-month relationship was not a good track record.

Slowing down, remembering to breathe, Isa explained, “Grace said you were staying at your uncle's. She had no idea I knew _exactly_ where that was.”

She gave Flo a conspiratorial grin, and looked up at her through thick black lashes. “She told me I should wait for you. As if I was ever going to do anything else. I love you, you know that.”

“Oh, Isa.” Florence took her face in both her hands and gave her light butterfly kisses, a familiar sensation spreading in the pit of her stomach. “What did you do to my uncle??”, she asked in a mock-reproachful tone.

“Ah, you know. Just a simple stunner. He'll be out for a couple of hours. Now, is there anyone else we need to take care of?” Isa raised her eyebrow and smirked.

Flo shook her head and let herself giggle. Pulling Isabella by the hand, she held her close and whispered in her ear, “I love you too. Bed now.”

She wasn't intending to move from it for the rest of the afternoon.


	15. May (2 of 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Florence and Isa discuss their future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to post today and dedicate this chapter to Megan, because it's her 16th birthday and she's been following my blog and liking my fics since the very beginning :) xxx

They had a lot of catching up to do. Isa told Florence of the conversation she'd just had with her parents: how awkward, but liberating, it had been to find out that they had known about Amy; how they didn't ask any questions about her relationship with Florence, didn't check if she was _sure_ , but simply let Isa do what she felt she had to do.

Flo told Isabella of how she'd first attempted to write to her, only for her mum to destroy her letter. How she'd never flat out said to Grace that they were together, but she knew Grace had been eavesdropping from upstairs, so she had felt comfortable enough to write in a letter _I really miss Art club. Can you tell_ _everyone_ _there that I miss them?._ Anything more obvious, and her mum would put her foot down and say “You're not sending that, Florence”.

Her first attempt had flat out been, _Grace, please tell me if Isabella is ok. Has she been sent away from school? How is she doing?_ : that letter had never made it out of her room. And when Evelyn had driven her up to Aldeburgh, she'd taken away her wand so she wouldn't “attempt anything”.

“You've been so strong, Flo,” Isabella said. “I'm proud of you. When I knew I was coming here, I decided to bring you a gift, you know.”

“You mean, other than yourself?” Florence asked, her hands roaming idly under Isa's top, caressing her back. A suggestive little smile was playing on her lips and she bit her lip in what she hoped was a seductive way.

“Cheeeee-sy,” Isa scolded her, retrieving her satchel which she'd left on the bedside table. She pulled out a rolled-up piece of paper, tied up with a bow, which she handed over apprehensively.

Flo sat up on the bed, leaning back against the headboard and unravelling the paper. Isabella cherished her shocked reaction as she recognised herself, aged 11, sitting astride a tree branch with a book in her hand.

Before she could ask any questions, Isa explained, “I drew this, what... 6 years ago, maybe? I thought you looked a bit like a wood nymph hidden in that tree like that.” She noticed Florence's fingers hovering just an inch away from the paper. “You can touch it if you want. I learnt protective enchantments to not smudge my sketches aged thirteen.”

Florence still didn't trust herself to speak. It wasn't so much the fact she had been portrayed by Isabella, years and years before they had got to know each other and fallen in love; it was that Isa had shown her her artwork and she knew how big of a deal that was. It was a deeply moving gesture and it meant a lot: between the lines, it meant that Isabella was finally ready to trust again.

“I knew you were a great artist,” Flo murmured. “You draw a lot better than I do. Thank you.”

“Don't get too used to it, eh?” Isa downplayed it. “I need to go check on your uncle. I'll make sure he stays asleep for the rest of the afternoon.” She added with a little wink.

=

One by one, clothes had been peeled off and strewn across the room, and what was left was only their naked bodies, Flo curled up in a fetal position and Isabella resting her hand between Flo's knees. They'd both dozed off for a little while after wearing each other out in bed. The sun was starting to go down outside the window and Isa knew she would have to go soon, but there was still the unspoken question of how they were going to keep in touch until Florence came back to take her exams.

“Do you think you can hold out another month, Flo?” Isa asked. “Until your NEWTs?”

“Sure.” Flo replied brightly, then immediately changed her mind. “I mean, no, it will _kill_ me, but it's ok if I know you're going to wait for me.”

She was cute when she frowned, Isabella thought. There was this babyish quality about her face that didn't quite match the maturity and depth of her personality.

“I'm not going anywhere, sweetheart,” she reassured her. “I can't just flick a switch and stop being in love with you.”

Florence's voice went really small all of a sudden. “I know you've said it before, but I don't think I can get enough of you saying it.”

“I'm _in love with you_ , Flo.” Isa repeated, serious. “Are you going to hold it against me that it took so long to admit it?”

Flo shook her head. “Never. You admitting it changed my life, Isa. I've never met anyone like you.”

Admissions or not, Isa still felt that was undeserved. Not a lot was special about her, except that she had messed up more times than she could remember and yet somehow she was still standing.

“So what do we do now?” She asked Florence.

“Well, you could come back tomorrow. The weekend isn't over yet.” Florence pouted.

Isa grinned. She grabbed her wand from the bedside table and summoned her clothes, then dressed herself under the covers, not quite wanting to leave the warmth of their cocoon yet. When she was ready, she leaned in to kiss Florence: she smelled of coconut and sex.

“Tomorrow morning?” Isabella suggested, hopefully.

“Yeah. My mum is picking me up right after lunch. I wish you could sleep here, Isa.”

Isa stopped dead in her tracks. “I didn't think of that,” she realised. “But I feel like I need to go have dinner with my parents. They were so lovely to me today... it could have gone very wrong, you know.”

“Yes, I _know_.” Flo raised an eyebrow to remind Isabella of her own situation. Isa walked around the bed and kneeled down to Florence's eye level.

“Don't think about that now, Flo,” She murmured. “Think we're getting a morning together tomorrow and right now, it's more than I ever thought we'd get.”

Florence took her hand and squeezed it. “Love you,” she whispered, and Isa made her way out.

=

The next day, it was Florence who opened the door when Isabella arrived. Her uncle was in the lounge, watching morning television, and he had his back to the both of them as Isa whipped out her wand and Stunned him again. She kept her spell mild, this time; he would need to regain consciousness by lunchtime, or Florence would have a lot of explaining to do.

They went upstairs, to the guest room, where Florence had been pretending to study Astronomy – what else could she do, without a wand? – and they climbed into bed fully clothed, curling into each other's bodies until it felt like they weren't two separate people anymore.

Sometimes, Isa felt like she couldn't believe that Florence really loved her. It had to have been a mistake. Everyone always grew bored with her, and even when she hadn't been particularly attached to someone - like her boyfriend in her last two years of school - it had still hurt to be discarded.

Florence hadn't started living her life yet. Isabella remembered how she'd felt upon leaving school: the possibilities, the sense of freedom but also of doom. The realisation that she didn't know what she wanted from life, no more and no less than she did back at Hogwarts. None of that had happened to Florence, but it would soon.

The difference, however, was that Isabella had been on her own. She didn't have anyone else to worry about. Was Florence going to leave her behind? It seemed to always end up that way, somehow.

“Flo,” she mumbled, breaking the silence. “What do you want to do when you're done with school?”

Florence looked away. “I've been trying not to think about it. It's really scary. All I know, is that I want to be with you.”

“There is more to life than just me, Flo.” Isa pointed out. It was some sort of masochism that made her self-deprecate and wait for reassurance. And then, when reassurance did come, it would gnaw at the back of Isa's mind that Florence was wearing love goggles and wasn't thinking straight, anyway.

“We could run away together,” Florence whispered, excitedly. Her smile felt to Isabella like a punch to the gut. It was innocent and fearless, and it made her nervous.

The idea was so tempting. She'd have to quit her job, however, the job that had been such a blessing. Could she turn her back to it after just one year? And then what? Just travel? Travel the world with Florence on her savings, until they ran out and they didn't have a source of income between the two of them?

“Think about it.” Florence continued. “We could go to France. I've always wanted to go to Paris. We can just go to pub nights, you play, I'll sing. That'll make us some money,” she added, as if she was reading Isabella's mind. She knew that Isa had a much more practical side to her, and she knew it was important to acknowledge it.

“Florence... as much as I adore that idea... you can't. This is _your_ life. What is it you want to do for yourself? Not necessarily for the rest of your life. Just for now. Just to try, you know?”

Flo looked at Isa, feeling a little rejected and trying not to make it cloud her mind too much. She knew, by now, that Isa was scared of abandonment. She didn't need to hear the words out loud to figure out that Isabella was afraid of losing her. Like Florence growing up meant that she would reclassify this relationship as something trivial and hopeless that had happened in her youth, and never look back.

She may have been the younger one, but she was also the less damaged of the two. Isa's eyes were blinking expectantly in the suspense of waiting for Florence to answer her question, her lips slightly parted, ready to accept her sentence that, if they were to be rational about this, she shouldn't be in Florence's future.

Florence kissed her forehead, then moved down to kiss her eyelids. As Isabella was forced to close her eyes, Florence took her time to slowly murmur, “I want to be with you. I want you to be the first thing I see when I wake up. Even if that means that I just rent a flat in Hogsmeade and you come home after teaching. I want to write songs with you. I want to give you all the words in my head, and you can put them to music, and I want you to never stop painting. I want to be somewhere that has art all over the walls, and everyone who comes see it tells you how talented you are. I want you to never have another day when you think you're not good enough. Because I love you, and I want everyone to see how wonderful you are. And that's why I don't care about where I am or what I do. Just as long as you're there with me. You're my heart, Isa. I don't want you to ever leave me.”

Isabella's eyes fluttered open and settled on Florence's lips, thoughts of kissing her flashing through her head, her fantasy rapidly progressing to them ripping each other's clothes off and never quite finishing that conversation. Did she want to be with Florence for the rest of her life? Yes. Did she think Florence was going to turn around one day, after a few years, and regret this relationship taking away her youth? Yes. Did she want to think about any of that right now? No.

“Sing me something, Flo,” she said.

And that was how they spent their last hour together, singing and kissing and crying. Soon, Isabella would have to leave, and Florence's mum would drive up and take her daughter back to London for another month.

=

Some time after lunch, there was a loud, persistant knock on the Summers' front door. Isa was closest, so she took the few steps down the corridor, only to find herself facing a woman she'd never seen before: middle-aged, with dark blonde hair and thin lips.

Isabella could see other people beyond her visitor, going to knock on other doors along her street. A small group of three was waiting at the end of the driveway, talking on their phones with grave expressions on their faces. The woman narrowed her eyes as if she recognised Isabella from somewhere, but shook her head to dismiss it, and spoke hurriedly, in near panic.

“Hi, I''m looking for my daughter, she disappeared about an hour ago? She's five foot nine, slim, brown-reddish hair, her name is...”

“You're _Florence's mum_?” Isa interrupted.

The woman was taken aback slightly as she tried to understand how her interlocutor could possibly know that. When she made the connection, her eyes widened in shock.

“Isabella?”

Isa didn't even have time to nod that the woman had already pushed her way past her and into the house.

“Is she here?” She shouted, irate. “Where are you hiding her?”

She walked into the living room only to find both of Isabella's parents getting up from the sofa, wands drawn in warning. Isabella was now standing behind her and doing the same, but her hand was shaking, all the way down to the tip of her wand.

“Calm down,” Robin Summers threatened, his tone low and steady. “No one's here.”

Less controlled than her dad, Isa raised her voice. “You'd better tell me what's going on, because if my girlfriend's gone missing I bloody well have a right to know!”

Florence's mum put her hands up in surrender. “She's gone from my brother's house. I was supposed to pick her up today. I'm organising a search party.”

“Well, I'm coming with you.” Isabella concluded.

Evelyn frowned at the unlikely alliance, but she needed all the help she could get, and she couldn't very well waste her time asking why on earth her daughter's so-called girlfriend was in the same small village in Suffolk where she'd confined Florence, of all places.

“We should come, as well,” said Liz, mostly worried that if they didn't keep an eye on the proceedings, this Muggle would bite Isabella's head off.

“Actually, Mum, you should stay here,” Isa said, “just in case she comes looking for me. Here, this is what she looks like.”

She summoned her diary, where she kept the picture they'd taken at Lucilla's. As she extended her arm to pass it to her mother, Evelyn craned her neck to look at it briefly, and raised an eyebrow.

“Are you saying you didn't know this was going to happen?” she asked Isabella.

“Would I be panicking like this if I _did_?” Isa raised her voice, but regretted it immediately. This was a less than ideal circumstance to meet Florence's mother, but all she wanted was to find Flo as soon as possible, and to find her safe and sound. She didn't really have time to think about manners – it was already quite a feat that she'd managed not to cry.

“When did you last see her?” was Evelyn's next question.

“This morning,” Isa answered, a little uneasy. It meant revealing that Florence had clearly gone against her mum's will that she shouldn't be in this relationship anymore.

Isabella's pulse was rushing and pounding in her ears: she needed to get herself outside as soon as possible and feel that she was actively looking for Florence; she did _not_ want to stand there and be accused like this was somehow her fault or her doing. If she stayed in her parents' living room one minute longer, she was bound to smash something just to release some energy.

“Can we go already?” she fretted.

She refused to wait for a reply. She just turned on her heels and made for the door, with her dad in tow.


	16. May (3 of 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Florence has gone missing. Unlikely allies Evelyn Welch and Isabella have to find her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, notes!! For anyone who doesn't follow my tumblr: I finished writing this fic yesterday [by this I mean finished the June chapters that will conclude this fic, _not_ that this is the last chapter]. I still have an epilogue to write tbh, but it's _done_. The main plot is concluded and I just felt really mopey all night. I need to have a good cry about it. You have no idea what kind of accomplishment this is for me. Up until April I had never published anything I'd never written online. Scratch that - up until April I had never finished ONE piece of writing I'd written since the age of, I dunno, 17 roughly? That's the last time I remember concluding something. And that was too many years ago. 
> 
> Posting this earlier than planned because I'm on a high from watching the Rivoli Ballroom live stream and it feels like _all_ the Flows are online and like we were doing something together. Hope you enjoy (although not as much as the performance we just witnessed because that really was a smiling-ear-to-ear kind of ordeal, wasn't it, and a bit of real life Florabella never hurts). xx

Florence still hadn't regained possession of her wand, so she was running away the way a Muggle kid would. There weren't many places she could possibly be: she didn't drive, she was an absolute disaster on a broomstick, and there was no train station in the actual village, unless she'd decided to walk the two hours it would take her to get to the nearest one. If she had, she would be about halfway through by now and it would be nearly impossible to find her. She could just be walking through fields, away from the main road. Isa didn't think Florence had a great sense of orientation, though, and Flo was aware of that herself. She was probably just somewhere in the village.

“Can you not just... do some _magic_ to find her?” Evelyn asked her at one point. Such a typical Muggle question.

“It's not easy, if she doesn't want to be found.” Isa responded through gritted teeth. She was not going to be made to feel responsible for this. She wasn't. Was she?

There were eight people in the search party, including Isabella and her dad; in pairs, they were checking the local cafes, the seafront, and people's back gardens. Isa had a sudden hunch as she realised everyone was walking forward, towards the beach, and no one was going the opposite way, towards the park.

“I know where she is!” she exclaimed, and made to turn around.

“You're not going anywhere without me,” Evelyn said, quite patronisingly; 'young lady' was the only thing missing from that sentence. Isa didn't stop at all – she already had a mother, one that spoke to her with more respect than that.

Looking at Robin, Florence's mum asked, or rather, ordered, “Give me your mobile number, so we can keep in touch, please.”

“I don't _have_ a mobile!” He shook his head like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“You magical people are the bane of my life,” Evelyn pointed her finger right at him, impatient to take off after Isa, who was already quite a few feet ahead.

“You stay with my brother,” she hissed. “He'll call me if you find her.”

Robin chuckled and looked at her sceptically.

“Izzy'll find her first.”

=

Isabella walked through the park gates, Evelyn still a couple of steps behind her, not because she hadn't caught up, but simply because she wasn't comfortable walking alongside her and even less talking to her. It looked like Isa was looking at the trees from below, hoping to find wherever it was that Flo had inevitably climbed up.

Pointing her wand to her throat to amplify her voice, she called out “Florence!!”. It echoed throughout the whole park, and a flock of birds flew out of a willow tree, making so much of a ruckus that Isa could never have heard Flo's reply, if there even had been one.

When she spotted a mulberry tree, she thought 'old habits die hard' and bolted towards it, once again shouting “Florence!!”

“Isa??”

She heard her before she saw her. Something inside her made her turn around and warn Evelyn, “You have generated _two_ extremely headstrong daughters, madam. Florence will never come down if she as much as suspects you're around, so you'd better stay where you are.”

Evelyn opened her mouth to protest, but even she had to admit she didn't want to take that risk.

Isabella ran in the direction the voice had come from, and spotted Flo, curled up on a branch, no dangling legs, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible despite wearing a tartan shirt and denim cut-offs.

Florence smiled. Only Isa could have found her here.

“Flo, what the hell are you doing??” Isa pleaded. “Your mother's got the whole village searching for you!”

“Yeah, well, she can keep looking,” Florence frowned. “I'm so fed up with this. She needs to stop treating me like I'm a child. I don't know _what_ she's trying to prove with this locking up business. She can just go back to London without me for all I care. Then she might realise if she'd been a little less psycho she'd still have a daughter.”

How Flo thought that she would survive, stranded in Suffolk with no money and no wand, Isa would never know. “I thought you said you could hold out? Why didn't you tell me you were going to do this?”

Florence smiled sweetly, and dropped one arm to try and take Isa's hand, but she was far too short to reach up.

“Because I knew you would try to stop me,” she said softly.

From Evelyn's angle, it looked like Isabella was just talking to a tree. Rationally, she knew that Florence was up there, and she knew that this search would have probably taken several more hours if Isabella hadn't been there. She took a moment to think about this girl, how she didn't look like a teacher at all. Back in London, she'd just mistaken her for another teenager, and if it hadn't been for Florence's slip-up, she wouldn't have known any different.

In the distance, Florence's legs popped out from underneath the leaves as she rolled off the branch and jumped. She landed quite gracefully, which was unusual, and, still unaware of her mother's presence, closed the distance that separated her from Isabella and hugged her tightly, then took a step back to kiss her.

Isabella was tiny and she had to stand on tiptoes. Her fingers had framed Flo's face and Evelyn couldn't see much anymore except for a mesh of red hair and blonde. She thought they were standing forehead to forehead for a minute, then Isabella nodded in her direction, finally alerting Florence to her presence.

=

Out of Evelyn's earshot, Florence shouted in horror. “You came here with my _mum_?”

Isa took her hand gently, not making any motion to walk back just yet.

“She came banging on my door looking for you. I was worried sick, I didn't know where you were either. I'm kind of... pleased she came, I guess? If she'd knocked at someone else's house, I wouldn't even have found out you were missing.”

“Do you think she'll let me come back to school now?” Flo's tone was so hopeful, it broke Isabella's heart to admit that frankly, she had no idea.

“Everyone's different,” she said. “She'll probably want to remind you who's in charge. I... I don't know that this was a good idea, Flo. I had the worst images in my head, you know? I was really scared.”

Isabella's voice broke and, for a moment, it looked like she was going to cry from relief. Florence exhaled slowly and held her, Isa's own arms making their way around her waist. She listened to Flo's heartbeat for a few moments, then she added, “You need to go back to her, Flo. And I think you two need to talk, alone. This is too awkward for me.”

Florence reflected for a minute. “Isa, if you go now this is the last time I get to see you for over a month.”

Isa's breath caught, but she tried to stay strong.

“It's ok,” she whispered. “It's not like you'll forget me.”

She looked up again and touched her lips to Flo's, trying to focus on those sensations; they were all she was going to have for the next few weeks. She tried to memorise the soft texture of Florence's lips, her taste, her smell, the way her eyelashes tickled her cheeks sometimes. She memorised her freckles – one under her nose, one on her chin, and the way Florence's fingers squeezed hers as they kissed.

Someone cleared their throat behind them: Evelyn had walked up to them, with her arms crossed, still holding her mobile in one hand.

“I've called off the search,” she explained. Then, looking at Isa, “thank you for finding her.”

“Isa was just going now, Mum,” Florence's voice was trembling as she tried to act like this was completely normal.

Isa took a step back as she prepared to Disapparate.

“Bye, Mrs Welch. I love you, Flo,” she murmured, blowing her a kiss before her figure dissolved in a little tornado.

=

“So,” Evelyn said with a sigh, as she turned around to make her way towards the exit, “that was Isabella.”

“Yeah,” Florence mumbled, keeping herself a couple of steps behind her mother. “You nearly cost her her job.” _And yet you wouldn't have found me without her,_ she mentally added.

“I should be angry with you, Florence, but I can't bring myself to. I'm tired, and I'm happy you're ok,” Evelyn spoke with certainty; it wouldn't have been as easy if she had been looking at her daughter directly, “but I still don't understand why you did this. Aren't you a bit old for the whole running away from home malarky?”

Flo wasn't sure what exactly she'd been trying to prove, except that she wanted her mum to be faced with the fear of losing her. Then, maybe, she would understand that the restrictions she'd been imposing on Florence were ridiculous, and loosen up a bit.

“It's not like you're treating me like an adult, Mum,” she complained. “You've pretty much got me locked up, you took away my wand, you didn't let me go back to school, you hate Isa...”

“I don't _hate_ Isa,” Evelyn admitted.

They walked through the park gates, and back towards the main street.

“You don't hate her _now_ , maybe. Because you've seen she cares about me. But when I told you that, you wouldn't have it, Mum.” She muttered bitterly, staring at the floor.

It was true that Evelyn had not believed in the sincerity of Isa's feelings until she'd seen her with her wand out, eyes filling with tears, looking more like a scared child than anything else.

“Would it make you happier if I let you write to her?”

Florence gasped; she could hear a hint of a smile in her mother's voice. Not one to settle without haggling, she challenged, “Can't you just send me back to school??”

“Florence,” her mum said, “you're the first of my children to graduate. And sure, it may just be some magical school that I don't understand, but I have a feeling if I let you go back, there wouldn't be much _studying_ happening.”

Flo clenched her fists and tried to contain her anger; then again, why was she expecting Evelyn to suddenly be ok with her relationship? But baby steps were better than nothing, and she could write to Isabella, and maybe Floo call her.

“But I can write to Isa? Any time I want?” she asked for confirmation.

“Any time you want. And maybe once you've had your exams and you come back to London, she can come for dinner sometime?”

Florence looked up coyly at her mum: she hadn't quite earned herself a hug just yet, but with as much poise as she could muster, Florence said “Thank you.”


	17. June (1 of 6)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's exam time and Florence comes back to Hogwarts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who follows my tumblr - I posted a schedule for the last few chapters of this fic, and I managed to get it _wrong_. I made the schedule based on 5 chapters but there's actually 6. So the last part will be out on Tuesday 11th December and that will be the conclusion of the fic. I still haven't written an epilogue but tbh I'm not rushing and that can come even a few weeks after it finishes.   
>  Also I apologise for any comments that I still haven't replied to, I have read and loved every single one and I *will* get round to it eventually! xx

# June

The Headmaster or Headmistress' office spurted out of a tower like a bud out of a stalk, and Grace had never needed to visit it once in three years. It wasn't that she was a model student; she just knew how not to get caught. This, however, was a fairly important matter, and as she waited in the antechamber she fiddled nervously with the pleats of her uniform skirt.

It was an open space, so she could see McGonagall sitting at her desk on the next level up. She appeared to be very busy writing frantically with her quill; when she stamped on the sealing wax, Grace jumped in her seat and then immediately felt guilty for making noise.

Finally, the headmistress turned her attention to her.

“Take a seat, Miss Welch,” she said, looking up from her papers, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Grace went up the few steps on trembling legs and she hadn't even fully sat down when she blurted out, in one breath, “My sister is back at Hogwarts tomorrow and I was wondering if I could get special permission to go and pick her up from Hogsmeade station?”

McGonagall regarded her from above her oval glasses. Her lips were pursed in a dissatisfied expression: Grace found her absolutely terrifying.

“Miss Welch,” she paused for effect, “as you clearly know, the school rules state that no minor can leave the grounds outside of pre-planned trips to Hogsmeade and, in the case of first and second years, not even then.”

Grace hung her head; her voice came out unexpectedly ragged when she feebly tried to explain, “I haven't seen her in two months.”

For a headstrong young girl, Grace Welch had grown up attached to the hip of her big sister and the separation had clearly been weighing on her. McGonagall had tried as hard as she could not to display Gryffindor bias since she'd stopped being Head of House and become Headmistress, but she was still very much into Quidditch, and if she was going to do anyone a personal favour, it had to be the star Seeker of her team.

“I will ask Professor Summers if she would chaperone you, Miss Welch.” McGonagall conceded. Then, with a roll of her eyes that made Grace chuckle, she added, “I'm pretty sure she was going anyway.”

=

This was only the second time Grace and Isabella spent any time together, although ever since Isa's return from Aldeburgh, they had made eye contact a lot more frequently in corridors and at meal times. Isabella assumed Grace must know that the situation had changed slightly, as Florence was now writing to her every other day, and sent her sketches, lyrics, and anything else that went through her head. If her mum thought that keeping Florence at home would aid her studying, clearly she didn't know what Florence was capable of with only a desk, a piece of paper and a pen or pencil.

June wasn't exactly hot, but it was sunny enough that Isa had risked wearing shorts – she thought Florence would appreciate it – and a gypsy blouse with flared sleeves; anyone looking at the two blondes walking next to each other would have thought they were sisters.

There was a slightly awkward silence between them, until Isabella finally plucked up the courage to ask “What do you think Florence wants do to after school?”

Grace turned to regard Isabella, a look of slight confusion crossing her youthful face. She tilted her head the other way and kept walking down the slope as she searched for the words to best answer the question.

“I don't really know what she _wants_ to do, but I bet my mum would prefer it if she went back to London and chose to live as a Muggle.”

Isa seemed to consider that, gazing up at the sky so her face would catch as many tepid sunrays as she could. Her mind conjured up images of her and Florence living together in London. She didn't know anything else than the tiny flat she'd shared with Amy, so that was where she envisioned their life together, but what on earth could they do?

“You're thinking about going with her, aren't you.” Grace brought her back down to earth.

Isa opened her mouth to speak, but didn't really know what to say. Her fantasies were too private to share with a near stranger. Diplomatically, she concluded, “Even if I was, your mum wouldn't let me.”

“Flo's 18 in two months. No one will need to _let_ her anymore. I know my mum can be a little controlling, but once Flo's 18 there'll be nothing she can do. But if you came to London, you couldn't be a teacher.”

“I never really wanted to be a teacher anyway. It just sort of... happened.” Isabella explained, wishing that the conversation would stop right about then. It was veering into too-personal territory. Thankfully, they were almost at the station.

They arrived just minutes before the Hogwarts Express was due in and bought some drinks to sip while they waited on the platform, which was otherwise deserted. The train pulled in with its usual fanfare and when Florence stepped off, she was a spark of colour in a sparse crowd wearing browns and blacks. Her hair was back to bright red and she'd had it cut just below her shoulders. It was almost like she'd come full circle since the first time Isa had seen her singing the school anthem at their inaugural dinner. Similar and yet so different: she'd been a stranger then, someone with a beautiful voice that Isa had enjoyed listening to. Now, she was her girlfriend; the one she'd done crazy things for, the one she'd put her job on the line for. And she would do it all over again if it ever came to that – that was the price of happiness.

Flo spotted the two blonde heads very easily, and sang out a loud “HELLO!” that made everyone's heads turn in shock. As fast as she could, she sauntered over to hug Grace, mindful that she and Isa would have to act like strangers until they were safely away from other people. It was killing her, not being able to cuddle Isa straight away, and on top of it all, Isa herself was struggling to hide her joyful smile and looked a little frustrated at having to keep her hands to herself. She kept her hello formal, as was appropriate to her role of chaperone, and nodded her head towards the exit, until Florence, struck by a sudden idea, said pointedly, “Let me just go to the loo before we set off...”

Her eyebrow was raised quite unmistakably; it took all of Isa's self control not to burst out laughing.

“Good idea, actually. Shouldn't have drunk coffee while I waited.” Isabella said, and her head rushed in anticipation. Embarrassment prevented her from checking out Grace's reaction, but they'd have to get used to each other's presence sooner or later.

Before she knew it, Isa was up against a toilet door, Flo's face in her hands, Flo's tongue in her mouth, whispers of "I missed you" being uttered in both directions between kisses.

"We can't just lock ourselves in here forever," Isa was always the voice of reason. She squeezed Florence's fingers and looked into her eyes. "Come on. We have all the time in the world now. Classes are over. We can be together every day if you want."

" _If I want_?" Flo looked suddenly serious, just another one of her unpredictable mood swings. "Isa, we've been together three months and we've spent more than half that time separated. I'm not letting you go. Ever."

Isa sighed as she thought back to what Grace had said, about what was going to happen when she was going to be here for a new school year, and Florence would be back in London, literally miles away. She forced a smile through the sense of dread that was filling her stomach, and turned around to open the cubicle door.

They would have to spend that night apart, and the following ones of course. Despite McGonagall having been quite tolerant of the whole ordeal ever since it started, the school still had propriety standards. Their clandestine kiss in the station would have to be the last, at least until the next day. They walked back up the hill with Isabella taking her role very seriously and keeping two steps behind the two sisters; Grace did most of the talking since Florence didn't really have that many adventures to retell. Florence could feel Isa's gaze burning a hole through her and she wished she could turn around and look at her. Everything about them had been a waiting game so far; she wondered when she would finally be able to do what she wanted, when she wanted it.

They exchanged a stiff goodbye in the entrance hall, then Florence brought her small suitcase to her dorm. The common room was nearly empty, and when she offered a tentative “Hi?”, only a couple of people looked up from their books and greeted her in return. Everyone was on edge because of exams, but to Florence it felt for a minute like they had forgotten who she was. She hadn't been gone for _that_ long, after all, but this happened every year: every single student was preoccupied with their subjects and no one was particularly in the mood for talking. Everyone snapped at each other, only to return to being the best of friends once the blasted exams were out of the way.

She felt oddly calm. It wasn't that her exams didn't scare her, but regardless of them, she had Isabella: at least something was certain about her future. Tired from her journey, she hid her head under the pillow and tried to take a nap, wishing for dreams of Isa.

=

By dinnertime, Hufflepuff seemed to have slightly warmed up to the fact that Florence was back, but not a single question had been raised about her health, just some general “Glad to see you're better, ready for exams?”

Florence knew that officially, she'd been away from school with an illness called glandular fever. Grace, however, had also filled her in on the rumours: eating disorder, drug rehab, and the most far-fetched of all, unwanted pregnancy.

There had been some snide glances and there had most definitely been whispers in her direction, but Florence knew that people didn't like to talk about certain things. No one wanted to find out which of the rumours were true: they were all equally uncomfortable subjects. Most people didn't understand them and had to feign sympathy or interest when they didn't feel either. All in all, it worked in her favour.

She would have told the truth, really, she would have, if they hadn't been close to Isa losing her job once already. Everything she did or said now, was to protect her and grant her another year at Hogwarts.

Her first exam was Astronomy, in two days' time, and she only had tonight and next to do some revision, as she had to wait for sundown, which was fine by her. She could spend two mornings and two afternoons pretending to revise for her Charms NEWT, but really just thinking about Isabella nonstop.

It felt like her life was currently measured by how many days it would take until they were finally not student and teacher anymore. And of course, Charms NEWT _had_ to be the very last exam on the school's schedule.

When she got to the Astronomy tower, she wasn't expecting to find it that full. Hufflepuff usually shared that lesson with Ravenclaw and there were about 20 people in the classroom, but she'd somehow forgotten that there were two other houses at Hogwarts, so a much bigger group of seventh-years would be taking a NEWT in it. This meant that every single seat in the classroom was taken. Except for one: and that one was next to Sophie Hart-Walsh.


	18. June (2 of 6)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Florence has to face an old enemy whose intentions are not clear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've missed my tweet about this, the Florence + The Machine Army are collecting questions for a Q&A over at their facebook and Miranda has kindly agreed to ask on my behalf which Hogwarts house Florence sees herself in. The questions that will be asked are the ones with the most likes, so if you enjoy this fic and you're curious, head over to Facebook and put a like on the question, ok? It will only take a few seconds and I just really want to know!!! xxx

Florence hoped the rest of the room wouldn't hear how loudly she had gulped, when she'd realised who she would have to sit next to. There had never been a more silent classroom that didn't have a teacher present: the only sounds were telescopes being adjusted, pages flipping in textbooks, and parchment. She took her seat, uncertain if she should look in Sophie's direction: she seemed to be deep in concentration, looking into her telescope, which gave Florence an excuse to pretty much ignore her and get her own equipment out. Sophie inched away, jotted down some notes and then, to Florence's surprise, turned towards her and whispered, “Welcome back.”

Flo was so stunned, she could feel her jaw drop, and she tried to assess just how stupid her reaction must have looked from the outside. She kept staring, wide-eyed, until Sophie gave her a tight smile and went back to work. It took another couple of moments before Florence shook out of her momentary paralysis and set to practise herself, then halfway through setting up her station, she realised she hadn't even said thank you.

She didn't know how long she'd been there, alternating looks into her telescope with marking her star chart with a blunt pencil, but an unexpected whisper came from her left at one point.

“You've mixed up Zeta Leonis with Gamma Leonis.”

Sophie was resting an elbow on the desk and looking up at Florence with slightly sleepy eyes: a quick glance at the wall clock told Flo it was nearly 1am and about half the students had given up by now and gone to sleep. There were plenty of empty seats by this point, but she had been too taken to contemplate moving. And right now, she was too flustered to think before she spoke.

In a tone that was inappropriate for both the time and the place, she blurted out, “Why are you even talking to me all of a sudden?”

Every single student who was still in the classroom turned to look at Florence. Some in annoyance, some intrigued by the drama that was surely unfolding now that one former best friend had spoken to the other. No one even knew that Florence and Sophie had been friends at one point: their paths had divided the minute the girls had been put under the Sorting Hat.

Flo hadn't quite realised just how loud she'd been, and she felt her cheeks flush knowing that she'd made herself the centre of attention. Sophie stared on, with a poise that irritated Florence out of her mind – it must be a requirement of being Head Girl that she could keep her calm under pressure. Flo's gut reaction was the exact opposite: she wanted to gather up all her stuff and just leave. She'd done enough revising for the night.

She didn't wait for Sophie's reply before slamming her textbook shut and grabbing her telescope. It seemed like it was impossible for her to go anywhere without causing a commotion. Conscious that several pairs of eyes in the room were fixed on her, she announced, “I guess I'll see you all back here tomorrow night. Happy studying!” and made to walk out.

She was never expecting Sophie to follow her down the stairs.

“Florence, wait! Florence!”

Sophie had left all her stuff in the classroom – there were certain perks to being Head Girl, and a Slytherin at that. No one would ever dare touch any of it, or even just move her quill a quarter of an inch to the side.

Florence didn't stop until she got to the bottom of the stairs, impressed that Sophie had made the entire trek just to speak to her: it was nearly 200 steps.

“Why are you bothering yourself with me? You've got NEWTs to study for,” she asked.

Sophie was taking NEWTs in nearly every available subject: it was what she had been working for all her life. If she achieved more than 7, her name would be added to the NEWT Hall of Fame, and there hadn't been a new student joining the list since “Hermione Granger - 1999”, the year of Isa's graduation.

“I was worried about you, Flo – Florence,” Sophie corrected herself, conscious that she had long lost the right to use nicknames. “People were saying you were ill, but the thing is – I know what really happened.”

“Oh, you do now, don't you. And what do you care about it?”

Flo stayed resolutely vague on the issue. This was clearly a bluff. Florence did not believe that Sophie was moved by any real concern: she was probably hoping that Flo would get all defensive and blurt out the truth, which Sophie would then use to bring her down completely. There was still plenty of time for Florence to be stopped from taking her exams, not to mention for Isa to lose her job.

“I don't think anyone would like having to stay inside for two months, Florence. Especially you.” Sophie's expression remained neutral; she reminded Florence of a porcelain doll, with her big eyes and full mouth. She's been an excitable kid, once, but now she seemed to exist in a state of immutable calm.

“I had glandular fever.” Florence swallowed. A little part of her hated herself for going along with the lie. “It's a Muggle illness. You wouldn't know about it in the little pureblood bubble you've been brought up into.”

She wasn't sure where the venom was coming from; Florence's manners just seemed to fly out the window whenever Sophie was involved, the sting of her betrayal still vivid after years. They'd been best friends from the age of 6 until they'd entered Hogwarts, but when Sophie had turned her back on Florence they had missed all the important steps that friends go through together: boyfriends, heartache, school successes and failures...

“We are strangers now, Soph. I've done my growing up without you. I have other friends now.”

The corner of Sophie's lips turned downwards slightly, and she blinked a few times.

“Ok,” she finally admitted defeat. “I just wanted you to know that I'm sorry you had to be away for that long, that's all.”

“Well, that's too little, too late,” said Florence.

Sophie watched her march away before she set out to climb the stairs back up to the Astronomy classroom.

=

“What do Slytherins get out of blackmailing others?” Florence asked Isabella.

It was abrupt and completely off-topic when they'd been revising Charms in Isa's Transfiguration classroom. It was known that Professor Flitwick always concluded his exam asking the candidate to perform a free choice of spell and Florence thought that perfecting a non-verbal one, as well as being one of Flitwick's favourite students through her work in the school choir, could swing her grade to an Outstanding.

The piece of chalk that Florence was holding up in mid-air with her wand fell to the floor and broke in half. Isa turned around to see where the noise had come from, and walked to the blackboard to retrieve the two pieces.

“What the hell, Flo? What brought this on? You need to focus, honey, if you want to get this right by the end of the week.”

“Sorry,” Florence mumbled, lowering her wand, her gaze steadily fixed on the floor. “Sophie spoke to me last night, Isa. She said she knew why I was off school.”

“Oh my god, did she threaten you?” was Isabella's first thought. She was as concerned with protecting Florence as much as Florence wanted to protect her. It was only a matter of days and then they would both be safe, but their patience was really being tested.

Isa's question made Florence realise that she hadn't, in fact, been threatened or blackmailed.

“She said she knew that being off school would take its toll on anyone, and that she was worried about me.”

“And you think she was trying to get you to admit something?” Isabella's mind was churning now. What was in it for Sophie? What good was it to her if Florence didn't graduate or if Isabella lost her job? She was a model student, and not really known for raising any drama. She was renowned, yes, excellent both academically and at Quidditch. It was common knowledge that she had an internship at the Daily Prophet secured under her name, since her father worked there.

“I don't know, Isa, you're the Slytherin, not me.”

It was pretty clear that if they didn't talk this out, Florence would never get back into the right headspace for Charms.

“Flo, don't worry about it. Say she knows... even if she does, she's got nothing against us. I mean, McGonagall knows, even. She's covered for us for two months. If Sophie goes to her, she'll just say what she said to your mum. That 'she will look into it'. And then she'll just continue doing whatever the hell she likes. It's her school, after all.”

Flo looked dubious, and sort of dejected. “What if she sells the story to her dad's paper, though.”

“By the time it's published, we'll be long gone, Florence. Please, honey, don't worry about it and let's just go back to practising, ok?”

Florence only heard one word out of that sentence. “ _We_?”

Isabella opened her mouth and took a breath, but nothing came out. She looked down awkwardly, but a small smile was playing at the corner of her lips.

“I wasn't going to tell you until after both your exams. I thought it was going to distract you.”

“Are you joking??” Florence nearly shouted. “I feel much lighter now! We're going to be _together_! Oh my god, Isa. We're going to be together.”

Florence threw her arms around Isa and squeezed her while jumping up and down on her tiptoes. Isabella managed to grab her wand from the inside pocket of her robe and point it to the door, making sure it would stay shut. She didn't know how to contain Flo's euphoria, so she ended up giggling and jumping along with her instead.

Florence took Isa's face in her hands. She was always generous with her smiles, but this smile was easily the biggest Isabella had ever seen. It was pure, unadulterated joy, as if she hadn't been worrying about Sophie until two minutes ago.

"I love you," she said.

"I love you too." Isa looked down, slipping out of Flo's hold, choosing to play with the buttons on her uniform shirt. She knew that this was what she wanted, but her voice didn’t seem to reflect that. It was like she'd become very shy all of a sudden, embarrassed to admit that she was a lovesick fool once again, and that Florence was the reason behind her decision.

"I love you too,” she repeated. “That's why I'm doing this. I can't spend the rest of my days here. I'd be miles from you. I still wouldn't be able to tell anyone we're together, because if they catch on, they'll start saying I'm a danger, that I’m preying on the kids. There's no reason for me to stay, Flo. No reason at all."

"So you're coming to London?" Florence asked, still in disbelief.

"I'm coming to London." Isabella confirmed. She felt slightly less awkward now and her smile had become bigger and braver. "Get back to practising now, Flo. And if you don't want Sophie to find out, maybe you should write something else on the blackboard that's not _I love you Isa_ , ok?"


	19. June (3 of 6)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slytherin showdown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to Carole for her 18th birthday. x

Florence entered her second and last evening of Astronomy revision still giddy from her conversation with Isa that morning. She must have had her meeting with McGonagall by that point to confirm her decision to resign from teaching, but they hadn't been able to meet in the afternoon to talk about it, and Florence had dashed to the tower straight after dinner to avoid a repeat of last night.

She'd learnt her lesson and this time she could pick her choice of seat – as far away as possible from where Sophie had sat the night before. She set up her station humming under her breath and relishing the sense of complete freedom she felt now that Isa had revealed she was moving back to London. It was too light still to really begin any observation, so she brought out a notebook to scribble in, something about wedding dresses and curses and hunters that seemed to make sense at the time. She would have to show Isa tomorrow.

When someone flopped down in the seat next to her, she didn't quite take notice of who it was.

“Hey,” a boy's voice brought her back to earth. “Good to see you again.”

“Oh, hi Callum,” Florence mumbled, absent-mindedly, flipping the pages in her notebook so her lyrics were out of sight.

“I have something to ask you, Flo,” he began, looking slightly nervous. Florence felt a shiver run down her spine and feared for a minute that Callum was going to ask her to the ball, even though he should long have a date by now. Instead, it was a whole different way of freezing the blood in her veins when he added, “Sophie sent me so you wouldn't storm out again.”

Florence made to speak, but Callum didn't give her the chance.

“We're part of the committee organising the end of year ceremony, and we thought you might want to sing something?”

Florence looked unimpressed. “This is _not at all_ what Sophie was talking to me about.”

That seemed to genuinely surprise Callum and, unconsciously, his rich brown eyes looked around in mild panic and his mouth opened slightly. He seemed to be at a loss for words, and Florence remembered that for a Gryffindor, he was quite shy.

“She could have just said so,” she prodded him, stubbornly.

“Well, yeah, I guess. I just wanted to make sure you had some time to think about it, ok?” He waited for Florence to nod, then concluded, “Do you mind if I sit here for the rest of the night?”

“Go right ahead,” said Florence. He was a more desirable companion to share a workspace with than Sophie, for sure. “Better the devil you know...”

=

The next morning, once again, Florence and Isabella had an appointment in the Transfiguration classroom for Charms revision. The Room of Requirement was constantly occupied by students panicking at the last minute, as Isa had found out in the last couple of weeks whenever she'd wanted to play her piano and no mahogany door had appeared. She wondered what the room looked like when someone else went in: was her piano still there? Did anyone ever use it? She never really did take any notice what random objects were in the room anymore, unless there was a bed or mattress of some kind – which she and Florence would generally take advantage of. Thankfully, her regular classroom was still available, since McGonagall was certainly not going to hold any last minute tutorials for her students.

There was a knock on the door, which surprised her, because Florence would have just walked in, normally.

“Come in!” she shouted, and her eyes nearly fell out of their sockets when she found herself facing Sophie Hart-Walsh, her Slytherin uniform immaculate as usual, hair curled to perfection and falling down her shoulders in a spotlessly symmetrical way; not a single crease in her robes.

Isa tried not to look too surprised – above all, she didn't want it to seem like she was waiting for anyone in particular.

“Hello,” she greeted politely. “Need any last minute tutoring?”

She wasn't Sophie's teacher, really, but McGonagall had made herself unavailable, and it must have been stressful enough for Sophie to have her Astronomy NEWT at midnight that night, and then a Transfiguration one at 8 the next morning.

“No, Miss,” Sophie replied, looking deadly serious. “I tried to speak to Florence last night, but she wouldn't listen.”

Alarm bells started ringing in Isabella's head then: she knew what Sophie had tried to suggest the night before, and if this was her new tactic to get either of them to admit to their relationship, she wasn't going to get what she came for.

She measured her words very carefully and remained vague: “You tried to speak to Florence about what?”

“About you two, you know. I was trying to offer support... but I think she completely misunderstood me.”

Isa didn't know if she should play dumb – this was the daughter of a powerful journalist: sure, Isa had kept her optimism when she'd tried to reassure Florence, but she did have a nagging feeling at the back of her mind that they were in more danger than she let on. What would be the price for Sophie's silence?

Clearly, she'd been waiting too long to decide on her response, because Sophie continued.

“I know that you're together, Miss. And I promise, no one else knows. I didn't tell anyone. Not even my boyfriend.”

_Do not confirm, do not deny,_ Isabella thought. _You're going to look guilty either way._

“Why are you telling me this, Sophie?”, she asked instead.

“Because Florence was off school for two months and now on top of that she has to lie about why, and maybe she doesn't trust anyone enough to tell them, so I thought if she found out that someone knew already, then that would give her an outlet.”

Isabella gave her another once-over, thinking of how poised and professional Sophie always looked; it was like she was perpetually at a job interview, showing the best side of her: the charitable, the talented, the altruistic. Frankly, Isa was struggling to think of any weak points for Sophie Hart-Walsh, and that was a scary, disconcerting realisation. But if Isa knew one thing, it was the inner workings of a Slytherin's mind. She got up from her chair and walked around her desk, leaning back against it once she was facing her student.

“You're a snake, Sophie – as am I.” Isa stared on with confidence. “We don't do things just for the sake of _goodness_. What's in it for you?”

Sophie bit her bottom lip, clearly considering whether or not she should tell the truth.

“I may or may not be going through something similar,” she confessed, through gritted teeth. “So I thought Florence may... _sympathise_.”

There it was. _That_ was the weakness. That was the selfishness. Sophie wouldn't really have approached Florence, if it hadn't been that she had her own personal secrets weighing on her, and she couldn't find anyone that she felt comfortable sharing them with. To be fair, it was hard to make friends in a highly competitive environment like Slytherin house – Isa had been quite lucky to find Lucilla – and Sophie was probably the most intimidating student at Hogwarts and when you were that well known, anything could destroy your reputation.

Isabella didn't want to lecture Sophie, but somehow her protectiveness of Florence came out in full force and she found herself saying, “You can't just expect someone to be on your side at the flick of a switch. You abandoned her when she needed you. I know it was years ago, but some wounds never heal.”

Her voice trailed off at the end thinking of how that related to her own life.

“You _know_ what Slytherin's like!” Sophie protested, thinking that would suffice.

“I do and then I don't. I never felt any pressure to conform. Don't use your house to justify your mistakes, Sophie.”

Sophie crossed her arms then and shrugged uncomfortably.

“And even if I don't? Florence didn't want to listen to me last night because she felt threatened. She won't listen, even if I say 'it was me, not my house'.”

“You have to prove it to her, Sophie. Prove you're not a threat. All you're saying to me right now could be just words.” Isa gave herself a mental pat on the back for handling this situation as best as she could. Then again, it was easy when she had the upper hand and she was arguing with someone six years her junior: she sure hadn't felt so bold and confident when she'd had to deal with Flo's mother.

“I thought I was proving it enough by not telling anyone about it. You think there hasn't been gossip about Florence having a crush on you? And yet I seem to be the only one who ever made the connection that the crush was returned and _that_ was why she wasn't coming back to school. I'm going to be a journalist and a writer, Miss. I've trained myself to study people. Body language. It's not my fault I cottoned on. You weren't really doing that much to hide it.”

That remark stung, because Isabella thought she'd been subtle and it made her feel uneasy that Sophie had been able to read her moods. Had anyone else?

“But the thing is, there's _nothing in it for you_ even if you tell. Even if Florence gets kicked out before she can take her exams, there is no gain for you. Or if I get kicked out: there is no gain for you. At which point, I thought I'd let you know that I've already resigned. I won't be coming back next year. So, as you can see, your ammunition isn't ammunition at all.”

Florence chose that moment to walk in – without knocking, obviously – and stopped dead in her tracks seeing the back of Sophie's head, the green lining of her robes poking out from under brown ringlets.

Isa could see Sophie slip back into her school persona, turning around to greet Florence like she and Isa had been discussing the weather instead of the intricacy of their interpersonal relationships. “Oh, here you are, Florence. I trust Callum told you about the ceremony?”

Florence's eyes shot up to meet Isabella's in an unspoken question: _why is she here? What's safe to say?_ A brief nod of Isa's head confirmed that Sophie knew they were a couple. Florence felt she was missing a big piece of the puzzle.

“I hope you'll consider it, Florence. I'll see you at the exam tonight, ok? You can tell me your decision then.” Ever so detached and confident, even though it had left Isabella a little intrigued to discover exactly what she'd meant by 'going through something similar'.

Sophie turned back towards Isa. “Thank you, Miss Summers,” she said, and she let herself out of the classroom, leaving behind her a stunned silence.

Isabella and Florence both heaved a sigh to try and relieve the tension they were feeling.

“Are you going to tell me what happened, or do I have to ask?” Florence blurted out nervously.

“You were right, she knows.” Isa said, staring at her feet. Part of her couldn't help but feel guilty that someone had seen through her. She should have been more careful. “She doesn't seem like she's going to tell anyone, though. I've pointed out that she has nothing to gain from doing that. And she dropped a pretty big hint that she's going through something similar. Her words, not mine.”

“Don't you think it's weird, though?” Florence seemed dubious. “No one's had a problem with it. McGonagall's ok, Grace is ok, and now Sophie's ok?”

“I think your mum's reaction has exhausted all our bad luck, Flo,” Isabella deadpanned. “And there's so many people who don't know yet.”

“Is it going to get worse?” Flo asked, inching closer to Isa, seeking some physical contact for comfort.

Isa looked up at her, at the green eyes that still held a glint of innocence despite everything they'd been through. “Maybe. But we'll be out of here, Flo. You don't have to keep anyone as your friend that you don't want to.”

“Can I keep _you_ , though?” Flo asked, with a small smile.

Isabella shook her head with an incredulous grin. Would she ever get used to being the object of such passion?

“I believe you've already asked me that. And I believe I've already said yes.” She stood on tiptoes to kiss Florence very lightly and inhale a lungful of what she'd come to recognise as her unique, familiar scent. “Now get to work. Exam is this Friday. If you do well, I might even give you a prize.”

“Oooooh, a reward,” Florence squealed. “Like what?”

“I could convince McGonagall to sign a permission slip to let you spend the night in my room the evening of the ball?”

Florence's eyes widened. She was going to nail this spell if it was the last thing she did.


	20. June (4 of 6)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Florence gets her exam results.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last 2 chapters posting schedule:  
> Chapter 21: Friday 07/12/12 11pm UK time  
> Chapter 22: Tuesday 11/12/12 time tbd
> 
> xx

It was odd that Sophie was trying to be friendly again. After NEWTs were over and done with, there was a short break, only about a week, whilst they were being marked. This was the time for the Head Girl and Head Boy to wrap up organising the end of year event. There was pressure to top the previous years' balls, of course, and Sophie and Patrick, the school's Head Boy, Gryffindor goalkeeper and Potions Club leader, were trying to involve as many people as possible in what was supposed to be a stunning magical and musical show.

Florence had agreed to participate, mostly because she had predictably lost the right to be part of the school choir. A new soloist had been chosen in her absence, a Ravenclaw called Holly who had spent the last four years being the eternal second. It seemed rude to ask for her place back, and Florence was honestly quite excited to perform as herself anyway.

With Sophie trying to get back into her good books, it had been easy for Flo to ask for things to be done her way. So far, her accomplishment had been twofold: she was going to sing her own original song, which she'd spent the last week perfecting with Isabella, and she would have two of her housemates on stage with her: Oline playing the piano, and her closest friend Livi accompanying on the violin.

All in all, it was quite a good arrangement, and she was looking forward to being on a stage again. The last time had been the sorting ceremony nearly a year ago. It wasn't the first time Florence would be singing something she had written for Isabella, _to_ Isabella, but it was the first time she would be doing it in front of other people, and it didn't even matter if they caught on at this point. These were her last 24 hours in the castle. After the ball, there was only London, and Isa, and hopefully music.

Ever since Florence had come back to Hogwarts, she and Isabella been discussing what either of them would be doing, once they got back to a city with seven million people where the magical community just didn't seem to have the right opportunities for them. They couldn't very well try and find jobs in the Muggle world when the only documented life experience they had, respectively, were two NEWT grades and jobs at a magical bank and a magical school.

Once again, it had been Sophie to suggest that they start presenting their music to an audience. Conveniently, her 18th birthday was coming up just before Florence's, and considering the prestige of her family, several influential people were going to be in attendance. She'd invited Flo to be a singing guest at her party - yet another way in which she was trying to prove her newfound loyalty - but as far as her infamous secret was concerned, she hadn't really mentioned anything at all. Florence didn't want to pry: it was Isa who Sophie had told, so technically, she wasn't even supposed to know there was a secret at all.

For now, Sophie was mostly happy that the ceremony was coming together quite nicely, and she was being overattentive to Flo so that her main act wouldn't throw a diva strop and suddenly change her mind about participating. When Florence had worried that Isa couldn't teach the piano part to Oline or that would raise questions, Sophie had just transferred the music onto paper with a spell so that Oline never even needed to know who had co-written the song. She'd organised enough rehearsals that no one felt underprepared, and Florence was actually quite looking forward to the ball.

First, however, there was the small matter of going to pick up her exam results. The procedure was quite simple: walk into a room, where a table was set up for each house, the Head distributing sealed envelopes to each student. They could do what they wanted with their results: open them there and then, or wait until later, but Florence knew that propriety required her to at least thank the Head of House, in her case Professor Sprout, and Headmistress McGonagall. The latter made it a point to spend more than just a few seconds with each student, so without fail, a queue would build up that snaked its way outside of the classroom and passed several other doors.

Florence was nervous about speaking to McGonagall. On one hand, she was grateful for the support she'd given her and Isabella when they'd needed it, but on the other, it felt very daunting: maybe McGonagall resented her because she was the reason Isa had resigned from teaching. She had wanted to give her a thank you card, but she'd chickened out at the last minute. She doubted the Headmistress would want to display a card that thanked for her help in an illicit relationship.

She stood in the queue silently, making sure she didn't make eye contact with anyone; the tips of her shoes had never looked so attractive. She made a mental list of the things she'd have to do once she was out of the classroom: write home to tell her mum about her results, do the same for her dad, pack up her trunk for tomorrow, decide what she was going to wear at the ball. In the middle of all that, she would have to find Isabella to tell _her_ about her results, and Isa had promised to teach her a spell that would keep her hair the right shade of red without having to turn to Muggle box-dye colours.

Before she knew it, there were no more students between her and Headmistress McGonagall, and the minute Florence looked up, she was met with the Professor's perpetually displeased look, but the corners of McGonagall's mouth turned into a smile, just briefly, in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it motion.

“Miss Welch,” she said, in a steady voice, “congratulations on completing two NEWTs. I'm sure this has been an... eventful year for you. Things could have gone very differently.”

Intimidated, Florence bit her lip. The only words that came out were “I just wanted to say thank you. You know, for the support. I really appreciate it.”

“Miss Welch,” the Headmistress busied herself looking for something in a satchel that was slung across her chest, “I need you to understand something.”

She lowered her voice just above a whisper so the people queuing behind Florence wouldn't hear the details. “All this time, Miss Summers was baffled by my behaviour, and I guess she never understood why I was rooting for you two. I gave up love for work, Miss Welch. I chose a job over my Muggle betrothed. I have regretted that decision every day of my life. And I will until the day I die.”

Flo's mouth hung open in surprise. That was a very personal thing to say, and more words than she and her teacher had ever exchanged in seven years. And she couldn't believe she was the recipient of it instead of Isabella. So McGonagall identified with Isa, in a way? And she wanted Isa to choose Florence over work?

“This is for you, Miss Welch,” the professor said extracting an envelope from a bundle of letters. “You've earned it. I wish you happiness and success, and remember Hogwarts will always be here to welcome you home.”

Florence extended trembling fingers to grasp the yellowed envelope from McGonagall's wrinkly hand, and quickly made a U-turn so that the next student would get their five minutes with the Headmistress. She was in an odd state of shock and all she could hear was the sound of her own heartbeat in her ears. She knew she wasn't the only person who had received something special from McGonagall: anyone who had distinguished themselves in a particular field would get her commendation. But Florence wasn't excellent at anything. Except singing. And she doubted that the Professor would give her special recognition for her musical talent.

When she opened her envelope, she found a permission slip to visit the teacher's quarters as a guest of Professor Isabella Summers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So now that you've read this chapter, hopefully McGonagall's behaviour is clearer for everyone. Most of you will not know this but that part of McGonagall's backstory is real and I didn't make it up just for this fic - although a few of you who are Potterheads had already figured it out.


	21. June (5 of 6)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's finally time for the end of year ball...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this it? chapter  
> This isn't it chapter  
> one more to go guys  
> I am so emotionally and physically drained from the Ceremonials tour that I can't even write introduction notes  
> however this part should be much longer than the previous one, so enjoy?

Seven years in the castle, and there were still parts of it that were foreign to her. At least McGonagall had drawn a map on the back of her permission slip, and enchanted it so Florence could see where she was at any given point. Little footprints were tracing her path on the piece of parchment, and she was sure she was going the right way.

She'd never been to the teacher's quarters. She stood at the bottom of two spiral staircases – males and females were separated, probably – with a wall in between which was covered in the usual portraits of important people Florence probably should know but didn't. She knew she had to go up the left side staircase and look for Room XIX, but she wasn't expecting that one of the portraits would talk to her and delay her.

The dame had long, light brown hair, wavy like Florence's, and she sat on a sumptuous chair with a bored expression on her face. She was probably the same age as Florence's mum, but unlike Evelyn, the woman in the painting was all angles: you could tell she had gangly arms and legs even though she was mostly covered in a massive, old-fashioned, pea-green ballgown.

“Where are you going without a password, young lady?” She asked.

Flo had never realised she would need a password like in the student dorms. She thought her written permission would be enough. Although she had her hands full with the outfit she'd be wearing at the ball, she managed to wave McGonagall's note at the painting, holding it up with just her ring and pinky fingers.

“Visiting Isabella Summers; _with_ the Headmistress' authorisation, if you please.”

“Not if you don't answer this riddle first.” The portrait replied.

Florence stomped her foot on the stone in annoyance. She made towards the stairs, ignoring the request, but the suit of armour next to the stairwell blocked her way with a pike. She had no choice. She looked at the painting expectantly.

“Say my name and I disappear. What am I?”

Florence knew that one. It was old, and really not hard at all.

“Silence,” she answered straight away, and defiantly took a step forward. Nothing moved.

“One more, one more!” The dame exclaimed; this was probably the most excitement she'd had in months. Or maybe years. Or centuries. “I get wetter as I dry. What am I?”

Florence rolled her eyes and thought about it for a minute. “A towel?”

“Very good, girl. Still not enough, though.” A wicked grin appeared on the lady's face, deforming what would otherwise be quite attractive features. “I go in hard, I come out soft, you blow me hard, what am I?”

“REALLY??” Florence lost her patience; if this stupid painting was going to mention double entendres, she could take some mouthiness in response, Flo decided. She started answering, “CO -”

“Ok, ok, _enough_!” A man bellowed from the portrait above the lady's. He looked down disapprovingly and slid into the painting below, waving a finger at the dame quite patronisingly. “Eleanor, leave this poor creature alone. She has somewhere she needs to be. And that joke was pretty crass, if you ask me. Nothing a young girl should know about.”

Flo raised an eyebrow and bit her tongue; she could live with being called a naïve little virgin if it got her upstairs to Isa any faster. The man in the painting clearly ranked somewhere above the lady, because the suit of armour finally raised his weapon, clearing Florence's path. She launched herself up the staircase, and only faintly heard the lady painting protesting in a shrill voice, “The answer was _bubblegum_!”

=

She knocked on the door, anticipating Isabella's expression when she found her there, unexpectedly, in her own room. They were supposed to meet in one of the Prefects' bathrooms upstairs – with Sophie standing guard – to complete their preparations for the evening.

The theme of the ball was “Any house colours but your own”. Florence had picked an emerald green dress, the obvious choice of colour, as it brought out her eyes and hair. It was almost old fashioned for someone her age, with a boat neckline and a hem just above the knee. She knew Isa would wear blue – she almost brought with her the nautical dress that had landed them in so much trouble back in London as a private joke, but she wasn't sure Isa would appreciate it.

Isabella opened the door in a fluffy dressing gown, one side of her hair still falling straight down her shoulders and the other side curled in huge ringlets. Her makeup was already on and spotless; a hand flew to her mouth when she saw Flo standing there with a coat hanger hooked under her index finger and patent leather stilettos in her other hand. She recognised them as the ones Florence had worn at the beginning of the year – they'd been hidden under her robes then, but tonight they would be on show in all their five-inch glory.

Isabella giggled. “What are you doing here?”

“Surprise,” Florence said, mouth curved in a smug little smile. “McGonagall gave me a well done present. For what, I don't know. I got an O in Charms, but only an A in Astronomy.” She extended the arm holding her outfit, and Isa extracted the crumpled permission slip from Florence's fingers. “Don't worry, I told Sophie not to wait for us in the bathrooms anymore. I'm not so mean to just leave her waiting there forever.”

Isabella looked at both sides of the paper, eyes shooting up in surprise.

“I can't believe she did this.” she shook her head. “I told you I'd ask her, Flo, but I never actually did. I didn't think we'd stand a chance.”

“It turns out McGonagall saw a bit of herself in you. Apparently she missed out on something special. She didn't want you to do the same.”

Isa's breath caught. She looked up at Florence, beautiful, excitable Florence; she asked herself how she had ever possibly contemplated missing out on her. She extended her arms towards her, and Flo gratefully accepted, returning the hug whilst still holding her dress and shoes.

“Let me finish my hair and then I'll do yours,” Isa's words were muffled against Flo's checkered shirt. “See if we can get you to stop dying it the Muggle way. If I did that, my hair would be falling out by now.”

Flo chuckled and let go of Isabella. She put her things down on the bed and sat next to them, looking around the room. There wasn't much in the way of decorations, but somehow it was distinctly Isa, even so. The bed, vanity and desk were spotlessly tidy, but there were some personal touches here and there. An unwashed mug with the Slytherin crest on her bedside table; the photo they'd taken at Lucilla's pinned to a corner of the mirror; there was a bunch of roses on the mantelpiece that Flo had “anonymously” sent Isa right after she finished her last exam.

There was a small frame on the bedside table, too. Where other people would put a photo, Isa had stuck Florence's message:

_There's a drumming noise inside my head that starts when you're around..._

“You kept this.” Florence commented, pleased.

Isabella went to sit right next to her, both sides of her hair now sporting those huge curls that made her look somewhat like a princess. “I'm done. And, of course I did, why wouldn't I? It's not the only thing I kept.”

Isa held her wand upside down, and showed Florence that the tip of the handle, carved in white bone, unscrewed to reveal a small compartment. She tapped it on the palm of her hand and a rolled up piece of parchment fell out. It was Flo's Valentine's day message. It had been her declaration of love.

“I forgot I'd sent you that,” Florence cringed. “I actually almost wanted to sing it tonight, but it was a little too personal.”

“Have you given any more thought about singing at Sophie's birthday, by the way?” Isabella asked. She'd been invited too, not just as a plus one, but as a performing artist. One half of a duo.

“Yeah, I think we should do it. You never know who might be there. They might offer us an appearance on the WWN. Plus, you know, I finally get my wish. We go somewhere together, as a couple.”

She covered Isabella's hand with hers, and curled her fingers between Isa's. They sat in silence for a few moments, each one contemplating what life outside the castle was going to be like for them.

“You know what would be really cool?” Isa asked, suddenly. “If there was one instrument that could replicate the sounds of, like, many others. Strings, guitars, drums... we could write all the parts to our own songs and never need anyone else's help.”

Flo burst out laughing, effectively ending their romantic interlude. “Oh, Isa, it already exists. In the Muggle world at least. It's called a keyboard.” She couldn't stop giggling, and kept apologising to Isa every few seconds for finding her pureblood way of life so bloody funny sometimes.

Isa tried, and failed, to look serious in return. “Considering the colour of your hair tonight depends on _my_ magical skills, I don't know that it's wise to make fun of my ignorance, Welch.” She said, squinting. “Stop fucking laughing and kiss me.”

Florence happily complied, but somehow she was still giggling against Isa's lips.

=

They had to leave the room separately, of course. How awkward it would have been, if they'd walked down the stairs hand in hand and bumped into one of the other teachers. Even just walking side by side was out of the question.

Florence went first, having completed her Slytherin-inspired look with silver glitter trickling under her eyes like sparkly tears. She was one of the first in the Great Hall, ready for a last-minute briefing that Sophie and Patrick were imparting to anyone taking place in the show. They needed to revise the setlist to make sure each entrance and exit went smoothly.

Isabella didn't arrive until an hour later, when most students had already taken their place at their House tables, ready for dinner and looking forward to music and dancing that would go on until the wee hours of the morning, for those who had that kind of endurance. Although all the teachers had made an effort to look nice, they were all several years older than her, so the women had all opted for long gowns, but Isa's dress had a short skirt, with petticoats keeping it puffed up around her knees. The neckline was high and the sleeves long: it had the Florence seal of approval, plus the blue roses from the mantelpiece had been turned into a headdress that suited Isa's hair perfectly.

That evening, a lot of boys seemed to be noticing Miss Summers all of a sudden.

Isa took her seat at the teacher's table, knowing that after dinner they would have to clear the area and turn it into a stage. It suddenly hit her that this would probably be the last time she was in this majestic room. When she had been a student, she hadn't even properly said goodbye. She'd been hotheaded, taken her results, and just hopped on the first train back, not caring about getting a proper send-off. She'd never had her own graduation ball, so in a way, she felt like this was almost her night, too. Everyone looked beautiful and happy: even her own students, in all their pre-teen awkwardness, were trying very hard to emulate the older kids. They'd put on their best dresses and suits, but only students of fourth year or above were allowed to stay after the show Patrick and Sophie had put on. Everyone else, including Grace, would be sent back to bed.

=

The evening's entertainment started off with the school choir, directed as usual by Professor Flitwick. A couple of particularly skilled students had put together a light effect show using their Patronuses; the Slytherin Quidditch team, led by Sophie herself, did an acrobatic flying display that was miraculously completed without a hitch. Florence wasn't entirely focusing on the show, however. She was waiting for her name to be called up to close the performance, before the younger students were sent away and the older ones were allowed to dance to their heart's content.

As she went up the three steps to the raised platform formerly known as the teacher's dining area, Flo felt the familiar confidence starting to fill every blood vessel in her body. She was going to nail this. She was going to make Isabella proud.

She used an amplifying spell so that all she had to do was point her wand to her throat and everyone would hear her: it was what they used instead of microphones, since there was no electricity at Hogwarts. There were hundreds of faces looking at her expectantly, and she couldn't help but smile excitedly.

“I'd like everyone to get on their feet and dance!” She shouted. “This is not _that_ kind of performance.”

The lights were dimmed; the four house tables started to levitate through the air and parked themselves somewhat higher than the enchanted ceiling, out of sight: when she looked down again, the Great Hall had transformed into the biggest dance floor she had ever seen in her life. A small group of students, inevitably led by Grace, had gathered right near the front, cheering loudly. Flo quickly scanned the people who had stayed on the sidelines until she found Isabella's sparkling blue dress, glinting in the darkness. That was her anchor. She suddenly remembered what she was meant to do. Words came out of her mouth without her full awareness.

“This is my own song. It's called _Howl_. I hope you enjoy it!”

Oline put her fingers on the keys and Florence lost herself in the music.

  
  



	22. June (6 of 6)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's their last day at Hogwarts and the first day of the rest of their life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, guys! The end!!
> 
> As I prepare to post this I am skyping with like 12 of you in a massive group chat of people who have been supporting this in the 3 (?) months it took me to post it. I can never thank you enough guys. I am so proud to have finished this and your support has been the loveliest reward I could possibly receive. All your asks, comments, artwork that you sent me inspired by this fic and just all the times you've said that Harry Potter and/or Florabella reminded you of me, and basically, I've had a very emotional week, with 2 FATM concerts and lots of Florabella witnessed first-hand, and now I'm saying goodbye to another one of my babies. No more to post after this.
> 
> But I will write an epilogue... that is a promise. I have bits and pieces and ideas jotted down already. I don't know when it'll come but this isn't the last you've heard of Hogwarts Florence and Isabella. 
> 
> Love you all
> 
> SAD x x x

She sang almost on autopilot, slipping in that semi-conscious state that was so familiar to her. Her eyes locked on Isa for the whole time, wishing the pure joy that she felt at that moment to somehow worm its way across the room and hit Isa right in the heart.

Even though Isabella was clearly giving the performance her full attention, Florence's brain still managed to process Sophie sidling over to her in her maroon satin gown, and exchanging a few words. For over three months now, Flo had avoided being seen alone with Isabella anywhere in the castle, yet it seemed perfectly normal for a Head Girl to just chat one on one with a teacher in a corner. Florence felt a pang of what was most likely jealousy, but a voice in her head said, _you get to go to bed with her tonight and Sophie doesn't._

When she sang her last word, nearly everybody applauded. A lot of people, students and teachers alike, seemed to be trapped in a state of mild shock, whether at the lyrics or at Flo's voice it wasn't clear. Their clapping appeared to be slowed down, as if their hands couldn't keep up with their thoughts.

Of course, Grace tried to drag the dancing crowd into requesting an encore. She pumped her fist in the air as she incited everyone else to shout “More! More!”

Florence giggled, voice still amplified by her wand and, looking straight at her sister with a daring smile, she claimed, “I don't have any _more_.”

Grace returned the cheeky grin and shouted back, “Just sing whatever. Accappella. People will listen!”

Florence thought for a minute. Oline and Livi stood on either side of the stage, looking kind of panicked as they obviously weren't prepared for an encore. With a tilt of her chin, Flo invited them to join the audience as she came up with an idea. They didn't need to be told twice, and rapidly walked down the three steps separating them from the other students.

“Ok. I can do one more.” Florence declared. “Some of you might know this, it's a Muggle song, one of my mum's favourites. I'd like to dedicate this to the person I love.”

She forced herself to lower her eyes to avoid looking straight at Isabella in the crowd; everyone would end up putting two and two together otherwise. When she raised her head again, she added as an afterthought, "I really wish I could be holding her right now..."

She took a breath and started singing.

_Oh! Darling, please believe me_   
_I'll never do you no harm_   
_Believe me when I say I'll never do you no harm_

Slow songs were always an embarrassing moment in the Great Hall: the ones who were lucky enough to have a boyfriend or girlfriend would snuggle up to them and dance together; on the other hand there were people like Grace, who decided to muck about with a friend in the front row, swinging theatrically and pretending to be holding a microphone.

Florence thought she saw Sophie dancing with Callum, but she didn't think much of it at the time. They both had to stay in close proximity to the stage: they'd been ready to go on since before she'd been asked to do one more song. As soon as Florence was finished, in fact, Sophie introduced Callum as the DJ for the rest of the night, then she gently led her former best friend down the steps to wild applause, but Flo wasn't even paying attention. All she could focus on was that she couldn't see Isa around anymore. Under the pretense of a hug, Sophie whispered, "Miss Summers said she was going ahead. I assume you know what that means. I'll see you for my birthday, Florence, I hope.”

Words failed Florence when she tried to come up with anything more than a "Yeah". She wasn't purposefully trying to be a bad friend, she just felt a little bit numb. The performance was over. Her school years were over. The adrenaline was coming down fast and she just wanted – no, needed – Isabella.

She shuffled out of the hall silently, and headed to her dorm first. Not a living soul was in the common room, confirming Hufflepuff's reputation of being "the party house", but the younger kids would be back soon and Florence had to hurry. She arranged her pillows and a few scarves under the covers so it would look like someone was asleep in her bed, knowing perfectly well that none of her roommates, not even Livi, would dare disturb her already troubled sleep. She left her shoes on the side - they would just make her more noticeable otherwise - and slipped back through the entrance hall barefoot, past the party and towards the teachers' quarters. She still had her permission slip in her pocket, but she'd much rather not be stopped and questioned by teachers and students alike.

The portrait was asleep. Thank god. She'd hate to be sidetracked a second time. Every minute spent answering riddles was a minute without Isabella. She climbed up the stairs two by two and knocked on Room XIX. The door opened so quickly, Florence wondered if Isa hadn't been waiting with one hand on the handle that whole time.

Isabella had already changed out of her dress and was clad in her sleepwear of choice: oversized t-shirt and shorts. Her personal effects had been packed away into a trunk and the room was stripped bare. They fell into each other's arms naturally, comfortably, like they hadn't seen each other in a really long time; Florence started swaying side to side and gave them the dance they'd missed out on at the ball.

"That was a lovely song you sang for me," Isa murmured.

Flo rested her chin on the top of Isabella's head and commented, "I can't believe you've never heard of the Beatles before, you heathen."

Isabella ignored the jibe and focused on Florence's heartbeat. There was only so long she could go on without kissing her. Reaching for Flo's face, she gently pulled her down; her eyes fluttering closed just before their lips touched.

It was over. It was done. In their kisses, Isa tasted freedom. They were no longer student and teacher. They were Florence and Isabella, ready to go back to London as a couple.

"Take this off, babe." Isa said, patting Florence's waist. "I saved you a t-shirt you can wear to sleep."

Flo unzipped her dress and silently slipped out of it, resentful that they'd had to break contact even if only for a few moments. She took the t-shirt from Isabella's hands and crawled onto the bed before putting it on.

Isa climbed next to her gratefully: she hadn't really done as much as Flo had during the day, but she was emotionally drained. They took a good, long look at each other before Isa switched off the oil lamp on her bedside table, but the moon was high enough in the sky that they could still make out each other's features in the darkness.

"You know I'll have to be in Aldeburgh for a while, don't you?” Isa explained. “I'll find a flat in London before you know it. Lucilla and Anthony'll help me.”

“It's ok. Me and Grace have to visit my dad anyway. And my brother."

Florence realised as she said this that she felt almost relaxed about the upcoming summer. There were no pressures; above anything else, for once there were no obstacles. Isa would still be there when she and Grace came back from their dad's. She'd proved her love more than enough. However, Flo contemplated buying mobiles, because as romantic as it was to write to each other the wizardly way, why did she have to wait for days to receive a letter when she could hear Isabella's voice with the push of a button?

“We'll have to find somewhere to rehearse for Sophie's birthday. And find a stage name of some kind. What do you think?” Isa asked.

Florence's hand roamed idly underneath Isabella's t-shirt. The stretch of skin between her waist and belly button was probably her favourite thing to touch in the whole world. It felt warm and smooth and reassuring. It felt perfect.

“I'm going to use my birthday money to buy you a keyboard. As soon as I get some." Flo responded. Isa tried to protest, but she was cut off. "Maybe we'll even get some gigs in Muggle bars. Who knows?”

“You're unstoppable." Isa sighed. "Do you really think we can get anywhere with this?"

"There is nothing in the world I want more than making music with you, my love."

Isabella closed her eyes; her chest felt like it was about to explode. She wasn't used to having all this love filling every inch of her body and pouring out of her, it was like she couldn't contain it.

“Then that's what we'll do. Goodnight, Flo.” She kissed her gently, and adjusted herself so that they were holding each other: one arm wrapped around the other's body, one joined at the hand, fingers intertwined, resting close to their hearts.

There were a few seconds of silence. Then Florence asked, “So, do we get to board the train together tomorrow?”

Isabella rolled her eyes.

“No, silly. You get into the students' compartments and I go in the teachers' ones. You know that.”

Florence hooked a finger inside the waistband of Isa's shorts and underwear, and whispered suggestively, “Say that while we're on board I come find you... and we snuggle up for the rest of the journey?”

Isa shook her head. “You're hopeless. Stop asking for the impossible. You can wait a few hours, can't you?”

Flo looked at Isabella's smile. She could happily wait forever for a reward like that. But she was still feeling a little adrenalinic from her performance, and she didn't quite want to go to sleep yet. Besides, annoying Isa could be quite fun sometimes, so she insisted. “And when we get off the train?”

Serious, Isabella just said: “When we get off the train, we start living.”


	23. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conclusion to Florence and Isabella's adventures in the Wizarding World, which ties in with real life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so here we go. It’s been a long time coming and if you know me at all you’ll know I can get quite obsessed with the significance of dates and recurrences, so this is getting posted exactly 3 years after the first Hogwarts chapter ever saw the light, on 27/08/2012 at 8:02pm. 
> 
> I have some thanks - I would like to thank Ashleigh on Twitter because even though I hardly know her, she recently discovered the fic and it pushed me to look at it again. I saw how adamant I’d been that I would wrap it up with an epilogue and I hadn’t really followed through on that promise. The .doc file hadn’t been touched since April 2013 even though it was already 80% written. So I tidied it up and added another 20% and the result is below. 
> 
> I would also like to thank the 3 people who read this and provided guidance until I felt it was ready to post and these were Rory, Clau and Luke, in chronological order.
> 
> Happy reading :) I hope this lives up to the main fic!

Florence hadn’t stayed over at Sophie’s since they were children. It was weird to be there as an adult with a girlfriend, in their own guest room, instead of sharing Sophie’s four poster bed. A NEWT Hall of Fame student and considerate friend, Sophie had taken the time to enchant the room Flo and Isa were staying in, so that the ceiling would give the illusion of the vast starry sky Florence loved, and from the windows, Isabella would hear the sound of crickets and the placid lapping of the waves Sophie knew all too well from the Slytherin dorm.

Florence had always felt like the Hart-Walshes looked at her with concern, even as a child, and if they knew about Sophie’s spells they would probably judge Florence for still having trouble sleeping as grown-up. She’d always been the half-blood who didn’t fit in, no matter how much she didn’t want to believe it, and the Hart-Walshes genuinely didn’t know how to act around her. They seemed like practical people: they were probably relieved not to have her for a daughter. At least until their own child had announced she was in a steady relationship with a Gryffindor boy. At her 18th birthday party, of all places; in the presence of the chief editor of the Daily Prophet, and a host of Slytherin alumni. 

It could have gone very wrong - it could have caused a scandal - but once Sophie made a decision, there was no way to change her mind. Callum was a pureblood, at least, but it hadn’t been easy for the Hart-Walshes to accept this development.

Florence wished Sophie had told her in advance, but no - she’d had to find out like everyone else. Suddenly the “I’m going through something similar” made sense. Falling in love with the “wrong” person happens to everyone sooner or later in life, and for some people, the “wrong” person is actually forever, Florence thought as she turned towards Isabella on her right. She found her already staring back with bleary eyes. She’d bothered to remove her makeup, for once, out of respect for being in someone else’s bed, even though it would take just a simple spell to remove her signature eyeliner streaks from the pillowcases.

“Good performance, don’t you think?” Florence murmured, unnecessarily quietly. It had only just gone midnight, but they had excused themselves from the cream of the crop of the wizarding community because Florence needed to discuss something very urgently.

“Understatement of the year,” Isa replied, her smile audible even in her voice. “You don’t notice this, but the expression on their face changes when you open your mouth.”

She could see Florence was sincerely touched by her choice of words, if a little self-doubting. “You get some credit too. You write the songs with me.”

“I might as well be invisible, Flo.” Isa deadpanned.

“Well, I know you’re there. And to me, that means everything.” Flo took Isa’s hand and she responded with a happy sigh.

“Staying for as long as you’ll have me.” Isabella closed her eyes and leaned forward to give Florence a light kiss. Then she rolled over, with her back to her girlfriend, trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in in this foreign bed.

“Night, babe.” Florence heard her mumble. “I’m really proud of you.”

So that left Flo alone with her thoughts, which she hadn’t been able to bring up; Isabella’s adoring comment had sidetracked her and made her lose sight of her agenda. She felt so edgy and sleep was certainly not going to come to her for a very long time. Her heart raced, as it did sometimes without warning; her lungs, her throat, filling with anxiety that something terrible was about to happen.

“I can hear the cogs turning in your head, Florence.” Isa called from her side of the bed. Throughout her tossing and turning, she’d somehow managed not to let go of Flo’s hand. “What’s bothering you? Is it this contract thing?”

“Well,  _yes_.” Florence replied, fretting. “It’s a big step, I don’t know how you can be so calm.”

“We don’t need to decide now… we can look at it tomorrow with fresh eyes, can’t we?”

“I’m just not sure about this.” Florence said, disregarding Isa’s request to sleep on it. Maybe they didn’t need to make a decision now, but she sure as hell needed to let out how she felt. “What if gossip mags look into our background and find out we went to Hogwarts?”

“ _Florrible and Misrabella are witches_?” Isabella asked, incredulous. “Who’s gonna believe that?”

“You’re not scared because you don’t know what Muggle gossip is like. You think wizard gossip rags are terrifying, wait ‘til you see the Daily Mail. It’s all new and exciting to you. I’m just trying to protect us.” Florence protested.

That made Isabella turn around. Her foot started to tease Flo’s legs, prying them open just enough to let her own leg be trapped in between them, hoping the closeness would also bring comfort to Flo’s troubled mind.

“Sophie said she would sort out fake backgrounds for us though, didn’t she? You can be sure she’s going to keep her promise. A perfectionist like her… she won’t do anything halfway. There are things that can be done, obliviation spells. They can just modify your relatives’ memories so they will all just think you went to some South London comprehensive or something.”

“After all I did to make my mum accept you? It’d be like invalidating all my efforts.”

Isa tried to lighten the mood. “If by 'all you did’ you mean that you nearly fell out of a first floor window that  _one_  time and I had to save you with magic because Grace still couldn’t use it outside of school…” She winked.

Florence feigned shock. “I told you afterwards. It was accidentally on purpose so that my mum would like you better.”

“Yeah, sure, of course it was, Florence.” Isa grinned.

“Well, you know, I’d been camping and I hadn’t seen you in two weeks and I couldn’t know that Grace’s broom was not weighted for me.” 

That had been her 19th birthday and maybe just the second or third time that Isabella had met Florence at her mother’s house (unless Evelyn was abroad for work and certain not to return; those were instances where Isa would actually move in for a few days, and they would learn to tolerate each other for long periods of time). Florence had been in Grace’s room and, seeing Isa approaching their driveway, she had obviously thought flying out the window would get her to her girlfriend faster than taking the stairs. Her mum had been in their front garden, washing her little red Muggle car, when Florence had flung open the window with the broom in one hand: a broom that, predictably, didn’t respond to her at all. It only took three seconds for the whole ordeal to be resolved, what with Florence capsizing on the broom and Isabella generating a vortex of some kind that sucked her backwards into Grace’s room and landed her safely on the bed, but it most definitely made Evelyn like Isa better. Not only had she been the only one to find Florence when she’d run away – Evelyn now owed her her daughter’s  _life_. As far as daughters-in-law go, she could have done a lot worse, as she came to realise the first time Grace brought home a boyfriend who seemed to be unable to discuss any other topic than Quidditch.

“Seriously, Isa.” Florence tried to go back to the subject at hand. “We’re doing well with the music thing, I think. Can’t we just keep going with the bookings we have?”

“Two of those are for funerals.  _Again_. I’d rather not build a reputation as a funeral band?” Isa said, making a statement into a question as usual. “Besides, the bookings are getting too much for us to handle. We need a manager and this lady sounds alright. Or should I say girl? She’s younger than me, you know? I think she said she’s 25.”

Florence turned her head on the pillow so she could look Isa in the face. “Grace  _has_  offered,” she reminded her.

“Grace is  _seventeen_ , Flo. She has NEWTs next year. Your mum would kill her if she dropped out of school to manage us. Then kill  _you_  for asking.” Her hand landed into the sensual curve of Florence’s waist and tried to physically – but gently – shake her out of her funk.

“ _You_  could ask. You know my mum likes you more than she likes me nowadays.” How things had changed over the course of three years. Evelyn and Isabella ended up bonding over their constant worries that Florence would get herself in too much trouble, their practical side providing an anchor for Flo’s constant daydreaming and her disregard of what the world expected from a twenty-one-year-old.

Isa couldn’t resist rolling over even further, landing half on top of Flo, hand still planted on her waist and lips coming up to about Florence’s shoulder. She gave it a playful bite. “You’re a sulky child, you know that.”

Florence hid her face in her hands. Her voice came out all muffled when she said, “I’m scared.”

“I thought you weren’t afraid of anything. _I’m not scared to jump, I’m not scared to fall…_ I thought this was your dream?”

Flo drew her hands apart just enough to uncover her mouth. “Stop using my own lyrics against me. I’m scared all the time. Scared that you’ll leave me, scared that something will happen to you. My dream was just to make music with you. I don’t mind in what capacity. I don’t  _need_  to make a record, that won’t help you stay.”

“I’m here.” Isabella turned very serious.

There was no reason for Florence to think that she would ever leave, and she’d never given any indication of wanting to, either. Sure, she wasn’t easy to live with at times. She was insecure: about her looks, about her talent… she still didn’t feel she deserved to be loved so unconditionally, even after three years.

She brushed her fingers against Florence’s and got her to finally reveal her beautiful features. Flo’s eyes struggled to make out Isa’s face in the darkness, and when she finally focused, she greeted Isa with a mock-frown.

“Flo, I really think that together we can do whatever we put our minds to. Your voice needs to be heard. Your words need to be heard. They’re too big and significant for just little old me.”

Compared to how much convincing Isabella had needed early on, this was quite a change of heart. Their first public performance at Sophie’s 18th had got them two bookings, and it had sort of opened her eyes to the fact they really had something good. Not that it was Florence’s talent Isa doubted, as much as her own. She always saw herself as an unnecessary commodity that could be replaced, but Florence kept saying that she wouldn’t want to write with anybody else.

Florence had chosen  _her_ : for some reason, she’d opened up in a way that she’d never been able to before. And Isa felt so lucky, questioning it would have been ungrateful. Florence really _did_  want to make music together. She was the one who’d bought her her first keyboard. She’d taken her earnings from those first two bookings and turned them into Muggle money, added it to her birthday money, and bought Isabella a crappy £100 Yamaha.

Isa had played day and night to really get to grips with it, and even though Florence still lived with her mum, she’d spent more nights in Isa’s flat in Crystal Palace trying to decide which sound effect sounded least like a dying animal and more like an actual instrument than she had in her own bed. Their songs had been fleshed out - there were strings, now, drum beats. There was bass and harp and the occasional guitar from Callum. Now they were being asked to put them on a record, and for the record to be sold to Muggles. Some would call it fate, but Isabella called it hard work, and boy had it taken her a lot of working – not just on the keys, but on herself.

Now, having performed again for Sophie’s 21st (which, as it turned out, had also been an engagement celebration of sorts) they were faced with what was probably the biggest decision of their life, after choosing to be together.

“I know you don’t care about being famous, Flo, but if this goes right for us we can be sorted for the rest of our lives. I wouldn’t need to pull pints anymore… we could travel the world… think of the people you could inspire with your words. Just think about it.”

Florence shuffled a little, curling up on one side. It broke contact with Isa, but she lifted a hand and ran the tip of her index finger down Isa’s nose, her voice suddenly taking on a serious tone.

“What if I didn’t have those kind of ambitions? What if I was just content making music with you and doing the occasional gig at a pub on Diagon Alley? I get it, it would be money. And I get that we would travel and that’d be great, but it’s not like it would be a holiday. I’m not the risk-taking type, Isa. You must be mistaking me for my sister… you know, the Gryffindor?”

Isabella sighed. She didn’t know if it was amusing or concerning that Florence didn’t consider herself to be a risk-taker when she’d initiated every last situation that had led them to falling in love. “There’s a little bit of lion in everyone, Flo. You just need to find it.”

“I don’t feel like a lion.” Florence whinged. “More like a little rabbit, lost in the middle of a road. The border between magical and Muggle. By the time I decide where to go, someone will have run me over anyway,” she concluded in her typical, overdramatic fashion.

“Well, what if the little rabbit had a snake friend for support?” Isa humoured her.

Unimpressed, Florence squinted. “Snakes  _eat_  rabbits, Isa.”

Isabella raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I could  _eat_  you alright.”

“ISA!!” Florence hissed, which snapped Isa out of the joke, and back into the role of understanding girlfriend.

“I know it’s a sacrifice, but you have a good support network. Your mum doesn’t have to be Obliviated. Do you really think she wouldn’t keep a secret for you? Just… don’t piss her off, and I’m sure she can keep all her memories and still help out with the fake background. I reckon she’d be happy to imagine a world where she took you to your Muggle school every morning, with your best friend Sophie. A world where we were just friends who work together, and we met somewhere predictable, you know, like a Muggle house party.”

Florence shifted an inch to the left, and although they were still close enough they could smell each other’s breath, Isabella knew what it meant. Florence physically distanced herself every time Isa’s words rubbed her the wrong way. Sometimes she’d stew on them and conclude that Isa was right; sometimes she wouldn’t. “You sound kinda bitter.”

“Well, I’m not going to sit here and pretend like it was easy. Your mum doesn’t like what we are, Flo. You could be running for Minister of Magic and she’d still rather you were a Muggle popstar, I reckon.”

Florence wouldn’t be the only one, either. Isabella had spent the past couple of years bringing herself up to speed on the Muggle music scene; and how funny it had been, to find out through word of mouth which artists came from the magical world and had completely made-up backstories. Granted, there weren’t many – some wizards and witches still preferred to make their fame only among their own people – but it kind of showed that it was possible to appeal to both worlds.

“Fiiiiiine,” Florence dragged out the word, and returned her hands to her eyes. The groan that followed seemed to suggest that she wasn’t fine in the slightest. “Fine, I’ll sign the contract.”

“I thought I was the one in this relationship with the crippling fear of commitment,” Isa joked.

That got her a smile. “For someone with a crippling fear of commitment you’ve stuck around though, I must say.”

“So, it’s decided? Tomorrow we sign this contract?” There was a faint flutter of butterflies in Isabella’s stomach, even though her head was hurting and she just wanted to go back to sleep. She kissed Florence on the cheek before settling back into the fetal position.  

“Tomorrow we sign our lives away.” Florence confirmed.

Isa rolled back a little. “What did you just say?”

“ _Tomorrow we sign our lives away_?” Flo repeated, confused.

“Ooooooh!!” Isa turned her back to Florence, hoping she would take the hint and spoon her. “Oh. I thought you said  _lungs_!”

THE END

**Author's Note:**

>  **  
> **  
> Notes for non-HP people, if you need any blanks filled:  
>   
> 
> There are 4 houses at Hogwarts: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. The main characters from the books and movies are in Gryffindor.
> 
> The _war_ that I refer to right in the first paragraph, is the final battle against the big bad of the series, Voldemort. His followers are called Death Eaters and the greatest majority of them are from Slytherin house. But not because someone is in Slytherin does it mean they are necessarily evil. 
> 
> The main characteristics of Slytherin are ambition, being "cunning", competitiveness, looking after their own and (this next one is my own personal headcanon) a love of aesthetics.
> 
> The main characteristics of Hufflepuff are loyalty to friends and family, hard work, and (again my headcanon) partying hard lol ;)
> 
>  _Quidditch_ is the official wizarding sport - I'm basically telling you Isa doesn't like sports ok
> 
>  **OWLs** and **NEWTs** are exams which in real life we call GCSEs and A-levels. I don't know if Americans have an equivalent, probably not. You need a pass grade on your OWL to proceed to the NEWT in the same subject. Pass grades are O (Outstanding), E (Exceeds Expectations) and A (Acceptable).
> 
>  _Muggles_ are non-magical people. Slytherins are supposed to be racist towards Muggles, but a lot of them obviously aren't, including Isabella. Also according to Pottermore, Slytherin now **does** accept Muggle-born students as well.


End file.
